Happened to Tsimikas a couple of times too but he’s not the scapegoat of the month so…
I’m not worried about his performances. I’m fucking furious about his attitude.
I do agree, I think the criticism is affecting him and maybe Klopp just needs to get him to concentrate on the defensive side a little more as that is the area of the game that he is being pulled up for. Still a great player just below his hest at the moment
1 Like
He was 1 v 1 with Mitoma and was beaten too easily no two v ones there
I think on field, there is no way unfortunately to get the best out of him unless he is made to focus on one thing. If he is made to feel tentative about whether to defend or to attack, he will not venture up front with ease and in the end, do both with not much effectiveness. He was one of the best attacking force when he attacked and left alot of space to be covered behind. That was always how we played to great effectiveness and its really up to JK to evaluate whether such a system is possible with current personnel still and if yes, to work with the whole team on how to cover the deficiencies of each position due to the system.
However, also that does not mean TAA has nothing to work on, defence technique apart, its really his mental aptitude that he has to work on. He firstly lack composure in defensive situations. He clears balls hurriedly and puts the team in danger. When he goes in for tackles, alot of times, he gets passed and in one on one, there is plenty of time he just gets run by and that means he does not imposed himself on the attacking player the way peak VVD would when facing an attacker.
All in all, TAA has never been perfect and his defensive frailties are not new. Its just now magnified because his attacking output is also not bearing as much fruits while we are always on constant pressure and his side has been pretty much the gap where alot of sides get their joy from. The team has to improve, TAA has to improve and JK and team including TAA now has to show, they have what it takes to rescue this season.
Well said but with regard to the system, maybe 3 at the back is the best way to get the most from Trent?
He was awful and has been awful all season. But he isn’t being helped by those around him. Matip for instance was a disaster yesterday, Salah has never been one to offer consistent support and for whatever reason no one in the midfield can cover for him either.
The point is that focusing on one particular player seems counterproductive when the entire team is vastly underperforming. You can count the players who are playing at their level on the fingers of one hand. Whatever is affecting TAA is hurting them as well and piling it on him offers nothing.
2 Likes
Disagree, he’s offered consistent support in the past, but the fact that that side tends to get further forward than our left side tends to mask that.
What we’ve seen thus far this season is a loss of that consistency of support down the right side, but I’d bet on that being down to the change in shape we’ve adopted.
1 Like
I’d agree with this. I think Trent is in a place where more than 1 thing can be true…the concern about his defending leads to a tendency to jump on him specifically whenever anything goes wrong regardless of how badly he did in any situation and how much more culpable other players were. And yet he can also still be way off and making too many mistakes.
On Saturday I think he made a couple of real clangers, but thankfully none of them lead to a goal yet he’s taking the blame for goals that he may have been involved in but werent necessarily his “fault”. Defending him on those might elucidate how others are letting the team down as well (Virgil completely missing the ball on the third goal), but also is a bit of a deflection seeing as he could well, should well have, cost us a couple of goals with dreadful defending at other times. There is no two ways about, he has been a key player in our success in recent years and is a MILE off form in all aspects of his game.
2 Likes
A very fair review of where Trent is going wrong.
Can’t comment on body shape and those fundamentals, but it stands to reason that if the coaching team at Liverpool haven’t corrected it after all these years, they don’t see it as a problem.
The United goal, you might argue that he gets beaten too easily by Elanga, which is true, but Elanga is also really fast. Then the argument becomes that he should have covered the man in the middle, but then he would be getting pulled out of position, and I don’t think that’s the defensive system we have.
The Fulham goal, he’s getting the blame for not knowing where Mitrovic is, but there were 7 Liverpool players who could see him and did not do anything about it. Most importantly, he’s left on that side with 2 men doubling up on him. Where was the support on that side? When he left the middle runner to Matip, as presumably the runner has moved to Matip’s space, his only mistake is that he hasn’t moved to it fast enough, but he presumably did that to leave himself in better control of the ball.
The next goal, which was against Brighton I believe? Again Neville thinks his slipping is a result of panic and some usual stereotyping. But in that game our players were slipping all over the pitch, in all sorts of conditions. It’s nothing to do with Alexander-Arnold himself. Sure, it could be argued that we shouldn’t be slipping, but this has been a problem for us for a few seasons now, and it isn’t an individual problem.
The scapegoating is ridiculous.
This is why you are just a troll, your entire life is spent sitting on this forum playing “devils advocate” to be arguementative.
Hate him or love him Neville is one of the more succesful English right backs of all time and won everything multiple times. I’d say he knows a thing or two about the game, even goes into detail how he was sent on a body positioning course multiple times.
No scapegoating just unbiased analysis of his game.
He literally ends the video saying Trent could be the best rightback of all time if he improved some elements of his game. How is that anything but complimentry? Your attempts at wummery are sinking to new pathetic levels.
1 Like
You’re using an argument to authority, with the suggestion that he should know something about it. Michael Owen was a top striker, but I wouldn’t want him to be coaching our team, would I?
You’re calling it unbiased, presumably because you’re thinking of club allegiances. That doesn’t mean he’s an expert. There’s a reason why his illustrious coaching/management career consists of nothing but failure, and he’s just a pundit.
You call me a troll, a WUM, but then again, you basically do that to anyone who disagrees with your pathetic reactionary views. Are you posting on these forums to massage your ego, or are you posting on here to get a discussion into football?
Either way, get a grip.
Henderson was taken out by a foul which the ref missed at the start of the Fulham move.
1 Like
Obviously Alexander-Arnold’s fault.
Neville “If Trent works on these basic improvements he could be the best right back of all time”
redalways “This scapegoating is ridiculous”
Haha.
Once you’ve been beaten your “position” is already negated. Other players are going to have to step out to go to that guy now and so your job then is to just recover back towards goal so you can fill in for players you know are going to have to have given up their position. In many ways, scoring goals is about pulling 1 player out of position and then trying to take advantage before the defense can reset. With Trent too often this season the issue has been less getting beaten, especially as so often it has been as a result of overloads, but his complete lack of recovery. The Sancho goal is a prime example because he had so little ground to cover, so much time do it, and so much clarity on which guy was waiting to get the ball in a scoring position.
3 Likes
Maybe if you actually could read and comprehend basic sentences you’d understand what I’m talking about.
He’s attributing those example goals conceded to supposed failures by Alexander-Arnold. That’s where I’m calling out the scapegoating.
I’m also disagreeing with the idea of the “basic improvements” since our defence doesn’t really do any of those idea, and the defending coaches don’t seem to have bothered with fixing it in the 5 seasons since his professional debut.
I presume you’re talking about the first goal in that tweet, in which case I would say that I don’t think he did anything wrong there, because Sancho was in the middle, with other players better positioned to take that space. Furthermore, it doesn’t seem to be a tactic of ours whether it happens on the left or the right, to have the full-back cover that.
As for the lack of recovery, I can only point out that when similar things happen on the left, we don’t seem to have that recovery either. Even into last season, if Alexander-Arnold got beaten where he was further up the pitch, it would be some other player rushing in from a better position to recover. Now, if we conceded a goal where it wasn’t the initial attack, but more than 20 seconds after the initial getting beaten, then I could understand his getting the blame for not recovering.
My speculation is also that it’s part of our tactical game to leave him further up so that if we recover the ball, he’s an outlet to spring a better-positioned attack.
One positive in all this pressure that is building up on Trent from many quarters… Is the likelihood he will come out the other side a lot stronger from it and learn so many things that will help mould him.
This pressure is beyond anything he will have experienced before, it is also not something he will learn how to handle on the training pitch… He will however be a lot more aware that the eyes of the watching world are upon him every time he runs out onto the pitch.
The lad is 23yrs of age… he is going to become as good or even better asset to LFC than Stevie G… I am just so glad he plays for us and never against us .!