England fans who don’t watch Liverpool on a regular basis probably wonder why Trent Alexander-Arnold is rated as highly as he is. Despite making his international debut four years ago this week, the Reds right-back has a modest return of one goal and four assists from his first 17 appearances for his country. As the goals he created were against Montenegro and San Marino, they aren’t going to carry any additional weight with supporters either.
It's not surprising Alexander-Arnold hasn’t been able to establish himself in the side when Gareth Southgate usually employs tactics which don’t play to his strengths. It’s not that the Three Lions’ boss doesn’t ever use the 4-3-3 formation in which Trent plays at club level, it’s just rarely deployed when he’s in the starting XI.
It can’t be a complete coincidence that his one international goal to date occurred when he played in a 4-3-3 set up and arrived in the box from the right flank to fire home against the USA. Southgate seems more inclined to use Alexander-Arnold as a wing-back or even in central midfield than in his recognised position.
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It’s a state of affairs which Kopites struggle to comprehend. They are accustomed to seeing their man run the game from right-back, redefining the creative possibilities of the position in the process. Before Trent’s emergence, there had been two instances of a defender getting 11 assists in a Premier League season; Alexander-Arnold has got at least 12 in three separate campaigns, including the current one.
Even when not directly creating goals or even chances, the 23-year-old is an integral cog in how Liverpool attack. Some newly revealed data illustrates how he dominates the top flight of English football in this regard to an extent no other player can match.
You’ll have likely heard of expected goals, where a chance is given a value based on the historic conversion rate for similar opportunities. The same principle has now been applied to all match actions, with the metric expected threat showing the likelihood that something a player does results in a goal.
For any individual pass, the figure will be small. Complete lots of passes in advanced areas, though, and your player will demonstrate their value. Football analyst Yash Thakur has compiled this data for the 2021/22 Premier League season and Alexander-Arnold’s ownership of the right side of the pitch is almost all consuming.
As well as having the highest figure in five of the six zones on the right side of the pitch, Trent also ranked third for the area directly in front of the opposition penalty area. This will be thanks to the tactical switch made ahead of this season which saw Alexander-Arnold play centrally more often and enabled him to complete the most through balls in the division.
The change has been remarkable. His archetypal assist in your mind’s eye is delivered via a cross from a position wide on the right, and often from deeper than the edge of the penalty area. Yet he didn’t have any of that nature this season.
That will have been in part down to finishing, as he still created chances from those locations, but Alexander-Arnold was far more effective in the right of the penalty box and in the area just in front of it. The expected threat numbers by zone show this, the assist locations merely confirm it.
In short, he has proven to be a right-back, winger and number 10 rolled into one. In that light, it’s little wonder Klopp has no time for anyone who says Trent can’t defend, as the fact he can defend at all when being so incisive in attacking areas is seriously impressive.
It makes you wonder why Southgate doesn’t build his team around him. That is never going to happen, thanks to the England manager’s conservative nature, but it’s equally valid to question why he doesn’t make more of Alexander-Arnold’s sublime attacking talent.
