Somehow Trent Alexander-Arnold’s performance, which earned him a third player of the match award in four games for England, has managed to spark a fresh conversation over his quality for the Three Lions.
On ‘The Rest Is Football’, Micah Richards spoke about the Scouser playing left back: “You sort of left Trent a little bit exposed in positions where he can be got at a little bit, if he’s going to play fullback and at left back on the wrong side.
“You’ve got to be able to make sure that Kyle Walker stays and he goes into midfield as soon as possible, so he doesn’t get as exposed as he did at times in the game… I would have put Kyle Walker at left-back.”
It’s remarkable that our No.66 has been given so much scrutiny for a game where he was statistically the best player on the pitch (via SofaScore) and played a crucial role in victory by scoring a wicked free kick.
Trent Alexander-Arnold was a crucial part of England’s victory
Interim manager Lee Carsley was clearly happy with the performance of his left back and going by comments made by Jack Grealish, the players are more than satisfied by our vice captain’s displays too.
To then see Roy Keane deliver a tirade of abuse about the 26-year-old and state the he can’t defend, yet nobody dribbled past him and he won every ground duel that came his way (via SofaScore), shows how blinkered some people are.
Even Ian Wright was questioning the defensive performance of our academy graduate and it really is hard to see what he did wrong.
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Now the former Manchester City defender here seems paranoid about our man despite the fact he has played as a fullback for the Reds for eight years and won every trophy doing so.
Bizarrely, it now seems that Trent doesn’t even need to make a mistake in order to receive abuse from pundits after a game.
Let’s just hope that this level of lazy reaction makes the Scouser in our team realise that Anfield is the best home for him, for the rest of his career.
You can watch Richards’ comments on Alexander-Arnold (from 4:00) via The Rest Is Football on YouTube:
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