It’s time to stop focusing on the occasions when Liverpool right-back Trent Alexander-Arnold is dribbled past. Gary Lineker (and others) have it all backwards.
Liverpool’s 2-0 win at Arsenal on Sunday was a fantastic game of football, which generated many talking points. The home side undoubtedly had the better of the first half, and squandered some good opportunities, but the visitors created more after the interval.
The man of the match, both on the BBC coverage and with the Liverpool supporters’ post-match vote, was Ibrahima Konaté. Yet the initial focus of the television analysis at full time was Trent Alexander-Arnold, as it so often is — and this was before news broke that he’ll miss at least three weeks, having picked up a knee problem during the game.
As captain, the number 66 conducted the BBC post-match interview. Returning to the studio, the panel rightly highlighted his positive contributions, not least the (unofficial) assist for the opening goal. But discussion inevitably then turned towards his supposed defensive shortcomings.
“We saw a lot of brilliant stuff from Trent Alexander-Arnold, and a couple of times where he can be exposed defensively,” said Gary Lineker. In the montage of the right-back’s performance which followed, there were two clips of Gabriel Martinelli going past the Liverpool right-back, only for Konaté to snuff out the danger both times.
Lineker did at least have the self-awareness to ask: “Do we sometimes look for any kind of defensive mistake from Trent and then exaggerate it?” Yet anyone glancing at the stats from the game might have drawn a similar conclusion. Alexander-Arnold was the only player on either side to be dribbled past twice, with 12 men having been taken on at least that many times.
This misses a key point that the post-match clips also ignored though: Alexander-Arnold was the Liverpool player who faced the most attempted dribbles, just as he was (or joint-was) in six of the last 10 league matches in which he started. Yes, he gets dribbled past at times but that’s because he’s frequently the most targeted player. And guess what? Premier League wingers tend to be pretty good at dribbling.
There’s another key factor which needs addressing in this seemingly endless debate, though. Alexander-Arnold’s success rate for tackling dribblers has recently got worse and it appears obvious why that is.
It’s right to note that his career record in the Premier League does not match up to his most obvious peers. The Liverpool defender has tackled 60.0 per cent of the players who have taken him on in the English top flight, which is below the levels of Kyle Walker (75.6), Reece James (73.7) and Kieran Trippier (65.5).
But like all players, they see fluctuations. Walker’s hit rate last season was only 39.4 per cent and it’s safe to say that the dip didn’t do Manchester City any significant harm. Trippier, meanwhile, has seen his success in this field lower with every passing campaign at Newcastle, with his rate for his current club (61.0) essentially the same as Alexander-Arnold’s with Liverpool.
