by Nodding his head in supreme satisfaction, Trent Alexander-Arnold couldn’t help but taste the nobility himself. This is a player who looks in the mirror in this swaggering form and is not happy with what he sees. And with good reason, when he electrifies Liverpool so much in the absence of Mohamed Salah. His delicious free-kick inswinger, led by the relentless Jakub Kiwior, simply put on display where he dominated all departments. It is tempting to call him the best right-back in the world. Apart from his influence in midfield you wonder if he is a proper full-back any longer.
On the surface, the leaders here in Liverpool looked short. With Virgil van Dijk out through illness, Andy Robertson still recovering from shoulder surgery, and Salah on Africa Cup of Nations duty with Egypt, the usual cushioning forces were missing. But no one should underestimate Alexander-Arnold’s ability to bend even a game of this magnitude to his will. At 25 years old, he carries the authority of someone much older and wiser. His stats against Arsenal – 73 touches, five long balls completed, four ground duels won, three clearances and two key passes – told their own story.
Numbers aside, it is instructive to study what it does in the flesh. At one point, he tracked back to collect a loose ball, arced around Arsenal’s toothless strikers with ease, and still found a dime pass for Luis Diaz to launch a counter-attack. He slipped effortlessly between his dual roles of running metronome and defensive pin. Eventually, with Arsenal’s resistance fading, he was firmly in the No. 1 role.
The ruse worked. When Jurgen Klopp sent on Conor Bradley to take over at right-back, Alexander-Arnold turned captain and choreographer, finding the ball which the Kiwior unwittingly turned into his own net. When his team-mates failed, he was leading in the middle, constantly trying to put Liverpool on the front foot. “Those people, you just want to hit a place, to make it as difficult as possible,” he explained. “That’s the idea, knowing that one flick from one of their players could go in.”
It was an ingenious way to reward an FA Cup competition that was high on gung-ho intent but low on lethal finish. Both teams were desperate to avoid a replay, with Arsenal having already booked a week of warm-up training in Dubai and Liverpool’s attention turning to their Carabao Cup semi-final against Fulham. Alexander-Arnold proved the man who made the difference, his determination to punish the profligacy of Kai Havertz. “We’re missing a lot of players, but we dug deep,” he said. “The change in our system affected us.”
Was the tactical tweak the crucial factor, or was it his own insatiable desire for victory? Both explanations were plausible. The reality today is that Alexander-Arnold is just as comfortable imposing himself in the middle as he is at the back. On one occasion, Klopp was bemused when he was deployed in a more advanced position with England, asking one false experiment against Andorra: “Why is the best right-back in the world a midfielder? I don’t understand that. As if the position of the right rear is not as important as the others.”
But with each passing week, Alexander-Arnold exudes the air of a man who has found his natural calling. He has long had a firm sense of where he can be most effective for his youth club, arguing recently: “My favorite thing is to have someone who controls the game, controls the pace, creates, breaks lines, which send the ball forward. the park. That’s where you’ll get the most out of me.”
This was the version that Klopp trusted to advance against Arsenal. And as Alexander-Arnold, a diligent self-improver, concluded. He has been known to study footage of Sergio Busquets and Andrea Pirlo for inspiration, and while he may still be too raw to be classed by that standard, he is adapting to his change of tackle with relish. Liverpool have improved under Klopp of late, with the full-backs no longer under pressure to provide all the impetus from wide areas. Therefore, Alexander-Arnold can offer a position as an outside midfielder. The transformation has been so successful that he is quietly building a case for Premier League player of the season recognition.
His potential is so limitless, it’s tempting to wonder if he can establish the same aura as England at next summer’s Euros. Although it will be a daunting task for him to assert his credentials alongside midfielders of the caliber of Jude Bellingham and Declan Rice, it is clear that he has been full of being a distant understudy to Kyle Walker. In the full bloom of his talent, he wore the captain’s armband at the Emirates with determination. Klopp cringed when he first contemplated how his team would cope without Salah. But with Alexander-Arnold in this mindset, Liverpool’s worries disappear altogether.
