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Liverpool Echo

Sport

John Aldridge

Trent Alexander-Arnold's 'head wrecked by England' as media claim made over Liverpool man

Trent (Person) Liverpool England Brighton (Organization) Darwin Nunez Joel Matip Jurgen Klopp Rangers

There's no getting away from it, the defensive side of Liverpool's game is poor at the moment. Everyone knows that we're conceding goals.

In a lot of games it's the first goal of the match, which is very important to the way we play. But you've got to give Brighton a lot of credit for the way they played, they were excellent. As bad as we were, going forward they were very good. They had six attempts on goal and everyone hit the target.

The disappointing thing from my point of view was we were getting beat 2-0 and then showed great spirit to come back and played some fantastic football, scoring a couple of great goals, but then the game management was poor. I know we only really play one way and it's fantastic, but sometimes you've got to see what's around the corner.

Their third goal, you could smell it coming down the right hand side, because they had two or three opportunities before that. We were gung ho. When it's 3-2, the game management part of our game has to be better.

They've got to be thinking 'we've got ourselves out of trouble here, get forward when we can but lock the back door'. You can go through all the defenders but as a unit they struggled. (Joel) Matip was probably the pick of the four, but even the heading from the centre halves - they were only clearing it five yards. You've got to be sending them 20 yards. We were bringing pressure on ourselves. Defensively we were all over the place.

England situation has wrecked Trent's head

People are talking about Trent. He's a fantastic player, we all love him to death, but what's happened with England - and I've been there - it's wrecked his head. He's now in a position where you stick with him or bust. He did do some great things on Saturday. But the national media have put so much pressure on this lad, (Gareth) Southgate has made decisions and as a result he (Alexander-Arnold) is all over the place in his head and you can see it in his game.

It's worrying for the lad but he'll come out of it the other side. It's got to be sooner rather than later but it's easier said than done. It's the first time that he's had this type of exposure and pressure put on him and it's not easy. Take it from me, I've been in the same position and loads of other footballers have.

As a young lad he's been magnificent and he will be again, but he needs help now from people around him - the management and the staff - to get him out of this mental situation that he's in. The English media have caused it.

The manager knows what he needs. Players react differently. He's had a break already, because he didn't play for a couple of weeks, so I think taking him out of the side is probably not the answer. We haven't got an awful lot of other options either so he probably just needs to come out of it at the other end.

While he goes forward he'll always be a threat, making and scoring goals, but defensively he needs people to rally round him at the moment and get his defensive confidence back because he's shot to bits. Your saw his reaction when he smashed the ball and nearly hit the referee. But he's a mentally strong lad. He comes from West Derby, has been brought up with his feet firmly on the ground with good parents. He just needs to come out of it now.

The players around him - Henderson, Matip have got to support him now and to be totally honest, Mohamed Salah has not helped him defensively. Down that right hand side attacking-wise we're magnificent, but Mo is playing six or seven out of 10 at the moment.

If you think of the Liverpool players gone by, you can got back to Chris Lawler. He had either Peter Thompson in front of him or Ian Callaghan, who defended like hell. They stop wingers getting onto him. With Phil Neal, Sammy Lee and Jimmy Case in front of him. Unbelievable defensively. Stopped everything. They helped those defenders as much as they helped themselves as defenders.

Mo has got to realise, when Liverpool need to defend, he's got to defend as well. And when Trent gets beyond him he needs to become a full-back himself. While people are scrutinising Trent, Mo can do a lot better, Jordan can really help him out as well, but there's not a lot of talking going on in there. That's what needs to happen. Just rally around him and once we get a couple of clean sheets he'll be back to normal.

The English media have done it for years and years. They build people up to knock them down and they've done it again with this lad.

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