Ever since Marcus Rashford made life extremely difficult for Trent Alexander-Arnold at Manchester in 2018, the Liverpool fullback has come under relentless scrutiny for his defensive abilities.
Some of that criticism has earned itself quite a bit in recent weeks, with the number 66 occasionally found to be watching the ball, contributing to an almost carbon-copied goal Jurgen Klopp’s men conceded against Manchester United and Napoli in the space of less than two weeks.
The images below from the 4-1 thrashing in Naples show both Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa’s marker Joe Gomez and Trent Alexander-Arnold making little effort to follow the Cameroonian’s run.
André-Frank Zambo Anguissa, that’s magnificent! ????
He plays a charming one-two before coolly passing the ball to Alisson…
Napoli beat Liverpool in the first half! #UCL pic.twitter.com/Vaf5CPQIss
– Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) September 7, 2022
In defense of the latter, it must be emphasized that our No. 2 had a responsibility to keep an eye out for a double to break our baseline.
Harvey Elliott’s interference may have confused things, though the lack of an attempt by either star to stick to the Napoli man or cut off the passing lane to Piotr Zielinski is decidedly poor.
Pressure on Zambo Anguissa should have been a trigger for Alexander-Arnold to cut off Zielinski’s passing lane by forcing a run down the side of the box or a short pass wide to Khvicha Kvaratskhelia.
Against Manchester United in August, the England international fails to track Anthony Elanga’s career after the Red Devils played a brace to, again, break our backline, leading to a first goal from Jadon Sancho.
Trent Alexander-Arnold does not commit to pursuing Elanga and leaves Joe Gomez with all the work to do
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With those two mistakes alone, one can understand why the microscope has been placed firmly on Alexander-Arnold this year, even though Frank Leboeuf’s comments seem to nod to an entirely different phenomenon.
“Look at Trent Alexander-Arnold. I love the guy, the offensive qualities of him. But defensively, he is at championship level,” the former France international told Journal du Dimanche (via Mirror).
“Only [Jurgen] Klopp’s system works for him. When he doesn’t perform as well as he has this season, all you see is his defensive shortcomings.
“I want to take it with me to work on the basics. I told him: ‘Turn your head and look back, it’ll be better’”.
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‘Turn your head and look back’ may well be a point that makes direct reference to those two instances mentioned above where the right-back was unable to back down, although one might also be inclined to suggest the 54-year-old is turning away. referring to the space left behind him when he performs his trademark runs.
If the latter of the two is true, Jordan Henderson’s return to the fold will likely have a significant impact in that regard.
While Harvey Elliott has arguably been our best midfielder this season, the teenager’s tactical immaturity has been exposed at times by his inability to plug a hole down the right flank when our Scouse Academy graduate runs down the flank.
It’s a perhaps underappreciated trait that our skipper possesses and we imagine Klopp will be inclined to sacrifice the number 19 in favor of greater defensive solidity.
There’s a sense of inevitability attached to potential criticism being leveled at Trent regardless, of course, and we can expect his most ardent critics to remain such, even if he returns to his shimmering prime after the international hiatus.
Still, if he can remove the damaging bugs we’ve seen in his game this term, we don’t see why the right flank can’t become as productive as it seemed for much of the previous campaign.
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