What is Trent FOR....?

I'm an admirer of the Trent Alexander-Arnold. Well, I used to be much more so, a few years ago. I acknowledge the case that he is a 'generational talent' - but I think he also has some serious shortcomings; shortcomings that have become more apparent in recent years. I rather fear that he has not developed much, if at all, as a player in that time. His gifts are still extraordinary, but they have not grown further; while his failings... perhaps have.

And, unfortunately, particularly from the point of view of the national team, I have become a bit of a sceptic about whether Trent really has a place in it. 

It is a common error - unfortunately shared by many England managers over the years - to suppose that in order to produce the best team, one must simply strive to incorporate all the most egregiously talented players. But I learned many years ago (I think this was the great secret of Brian Clough's extraordinary success in the 1970s) that creating a successful team is in fact a matter of finding an optimum balance between players with different skills profiles, different playing styles, different on-pitch 'personalities' - and that may often involve sacrificing some players who might in isolation appear much 'better' than those you might choose in their stead, because they just don't 'gel' with other players you want or need to make use of. (The great problem with the Gerrard/Lampard incompatibility which plagued the English national team through the Noughties was not that they were too similar in style [they really weren't!] or that they both wanted to play in the same position [it would have been perfectly possible to play them alongside each other in central midfield], but that they both expected to be the capo carismatico, the dominant personality on the pitch, the emotional heartbeat of the team - and there wasn't space for them both to be that. Successive England managers were afraid to leave out such popular and talented players, and so persisted in including them both - even though they evidently didn't function at their best when playing together. Thomas Tuchel, I think, is going to face a number of similar dilemmas; and I hope he will be braver in accepting that some talented players need to be omitted....)

The problem with Trent is that he is not really a full-back. He's not terrible at the role, he's got most of the attributes you need for it. But he's also lacking a few: most notably, pace. He gets skinned far too easily by nippy wingers up against him. And also.... I worry that he may be somewhat lacking in stamina, or desire to even try to get up and down the flank; he often just doesn't seem to be that bothered about recovering his defensive position quickly when he's pusheed a long way forward and his team have then suffered a turnover. And he has been encouraged in this weakness by having the Liverpool team built around this foible of his for the past several years: he hasn't needed to worry so much about the defensive part of his duties when he has such pacey central defenders as Van Dijk, Matip, and Konate alongside him, shoring things up. Indeed, for a long time the Liverpool approach was founded on having a very vigorous high-press which would often prevent turnovers in the opposition final third from leading to counter-attacks, and on having super-hardoworking midfielders - Fabinho, Wijnaldum, Henderson, Milner - who would stifle counter-attacks in the middle of the park,.... and move out wide to cover the space behind Trent or Robbo when they'd gone high up the pitch (sometimes even dropping back into the defensive line and temporarily taking over as the full-back). Trent, I fear, has been somewhat spoiled by this treatment. And it is rather unlikely that he'll find any other team - whether Real Madrid, where it seems certain he's bound next season, or England - who will be so extravagantly accommodating towards him.

What's more, it has become increasingly evident that Trent himself doesn't see himself as a full-back. Over the past year or so, he's done a number of interviews (like this one for the FourFourTwo channel) where he's suggested that he wants to play in areas of the pitch where he can "affect the play" more, where he can have a more decisive creative impact. He aspires to be a midfielder, probably a deep-lying playmaker in the mode of Andrea Pirlo or the later Toni Kroos. And he was transitioning to something of the sort last season under Klopp, when the sudden loss of the protective midfield screen necessitated some major tweaks in Liverpool's playing style - and it became too risky to allow Trent to maraud into the opposition half very often; instead, he started loitering in his own half, 'inverting' into midfield, playing just in front of his centre-backs and by-passing any attempt at a mid-block with his trademark long chipped balls over the top.

That's all fine when you're playing with Liverpool, who are a dominant team, almost always enjoy the majority of possession: Trent wasn't often put under pressure in that position - and would revert to the conventional full-back slot whenever the opposition did mount an attack. But if he wants to play in midfield permanently, he needs to add more elements to his game. He is excellent in his distribution, yes - one of the best long-passers in the world, no question. But a deep midifielder also has to take on defensive respoinsibilities: he needs to read the game well when the opposition are coming at him, he needs to be an incisive tackler, he needs to have a high workrate. Trent, alas, is rather lacking in those areas. When Southgate tried him out as a midfielder in the Euros this summer, it was a pretty unmitigated disaster. (That might have been largely a coaching failure - both in the specific game instructions, and in preparing him for the role. But still, he didn't cover himself in glory there.) I might question also whether he yet has the full range of attributes for the purely creative side of the job. Superlative long passing isn't enough; you need to excel in shorter passing options too; you need to be capable of dictating the tempo of the game by knowing when to play the ball early and when to hang on to it for a moment, by knowing when to play long and when to play short, by knowing when to play a risky forward pass and when to play it safe and keep possesion with a simple sideways or backwards pass.

Furthermore, even the sublime long-passing is very dependent on team context for its success. Trent has been able to forge a highly productive partnership down Liverpool's right flank with Mo Salah - who still has after-burners even in his thirties (and superb antiicpation, and a magical first touch!); and the Reds are also blessed with more similarly pacey and skillful players across the front line: Luis Diaz, usually on the other side, Diogo Jota, when he's fit, and Darwin Nunez, when he's on his game. Those early balls pinged over the opposing defenders' heads aren't going to work without such receivers racing in behind to get on the end of them (even Liverpool seem to be using that tactic much more seldom this year; perhaps because Slot regards it as too risky, preferring more patient progression through the middle). Certainly for England, Harry Kane just hasn't got the legs to chase balls like that any more (if he ever did; probably not...); Watkins might, but he's hardly a speed-demon either. So, for the national team, I fear that Trent's one supreme - just about sole - asset becomes largely worthless at the moment.

Trent, I feel, still has quite a bit to learn about the game - at least, if he is going to successfully transition to being an out-and-out midfielder. And I'm not convinced that he's got the right attitude to learn those lessons. One of the things that's alarmed me most about him in the last year or two is a suggestion of complacency, even sometimes of arrogance about him; he is starting to talk about himself as if he is one of the greatest players in the world - without having yet quite earned that status. And when - occasionally - he has a bad game, it can be very, very bad: it's as if his concentration deserts him entirely, or his motivation; sometimes, just once in a while, he really looks like he just can't be bothered to, as the pundits like to say these days, put in a shift.

Trent has some breathtaking skills: his long passing, his early crossing, and his deadball delivery are amongst the best in the world. But that's about it: he doesn't have that much else going for him - pace, stamina, workrate, adaptability. He's not really a full-back - not a great full-back, anyway. And he's not yet a great midfielder. He falls uncomfortably between the two stools.

I'm unsure how well he'll settle into the Real Madrid side next year. I suspect he might find himself used as an impact player in certain parts of certain games, but not be favoured as an automatic starter. And since neither England football fans nor the England manager watch very much of La Liga, I think there's a danger that - however well or otherwise he does there - he will drop off the radar of the national team.

I really hope I'm wrong about this. I would love to see Trent enhance the defensive aspects of his game, and start to look like a convincing world-class full-back.... or a world-class deep playmaker. And it would be a crying shame not to be able to make use of his talents in the national team. But at the moment, I just don't see where he fits. You can't select a player just because he does a few things supremely well (how I've rolled my eyes over the last year or two at the ludicrous suggestions that James Ward-Prowse ought to be in the England squad just for his free-kicks, or Ivan Toney for his penalties...!); you need him to be able to do an all-around job in his given position - and I'm not sure that Trent can.