Liverpool has reportedly already entered talks over one transfer target, which could offer a glimpse into the future of Trent Alexander-Arnold at Anfield.
Liverpool needs to resolve Trent Alexander-Arnold’s future in more ways than one. The debate about his best position rages on, but in the meantime there’s increasing urgency over his contract situation.
His current Liverpool deal runs until the summer of 2025. Time is still on the club’s side, but not for too much longer, with Alexander-Arnold set to enter the next transfer window with just a year left to run on his deal as things stand.
And it seems the club may not address the matter before then. While James Pearce for The Athletic says there is ‘no sense of unease’ at Liverpool around the futures of Alexander-Arnold, Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah, it is nonetheless unlikely that talks will get underway until the end of the season, in part to avoid ‘unwanted distractions’.
That might not be making the club uneasy, but it’s enough to make fans a little twitchy. After all, Alexander-Arnold is a generational talent out of the academy. The hope is that he will retire at Liverpool as one of the all-time greats, but he surely won’t be short of admirers in the transfer market.
Assuming Liverpool sorts out a renewal without too much bother, however, Jürgen Klopp still needs to settle where Alexander-Arnold fits into his plans on the pitch. At the moment, he is still starting games from his inverted right-back base, but is being turned to as a bona fide midfielder within games with increasing regularity.
Unlike with the contract, there’s no particular urgency to change this setup. Pundits like Gary Lineker continue to call for a permanent move into midfield — and the fact that Klopp moves him there when he needs a goal does somewhat imply that he considers Alexander-Arnold can pull the strings even more from a central base — but the unpredictability is part of what is keeping opponents on their toes.
The clearest indication of Klopp’s future plans are likely to come in the transfer market. And a move for which talks have already taken place, per Football Transfers, could prove to be enlightening.
Interestingly, it comes not at right-back, but at left-back. Andy Robertson will be returning from injury soon, but neither he nor even Kostas Tsimikas are especially long-term options in the grand scheme of things when it comes to planning for ‘Liverpool 2.0’.
Lined up as a potential successor is supposedly Rayan Aït-Nouri of Wolves. He has been an impressive presence in the Premier League, but he’s far from a natural successor to Robertson.
That is to say he will not spend the whole game bombing up and down the left flank and throwing in dangerous crosses. In fact, over the last year, he has no assists, and even his expected assist tally is only in the 21st percentile (FBref).
In the 99th percentile for successful take-ons and the 81st percentile for expected goals, it’s clear Aït-Nouri is not merely an out-and-out defender. However, he does look more naturally suited to the role of tucking in as a third center-back when required.
