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Barnes: Alexander-Arnold should remain in his right-back position

John Barnes does not believe the tactical switch of moving Trent Alexander-Arnold into a hybrid midfield role is worth persisting with for the long term.

 

In a difficult season for Liverpool in terms of consistency. the right-back has seemingly taken the brunt of criticism because of slack defensive play and his lack of confidence has been quickly identified by the opposition.

 

Alexander-Arnold has never been known as an outstanding defender in the true sense of the word, but he offers so much more to the team in another aspects, launching attacks from defence with pin-point passes and with his wonderful natural ability from set pieces.

 

There has been a long running talking point regarding the English international’s best position and if he will be better suited to a midfield role, a position which he played at his early days at the Liverpool academy.

 

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Jurgen Klopp has previously been adamant that it would not happen on a full-time basis but with the manager knowing that a top-four position is something of a long shot, he has looked to try a few different things and see whether it could be worth keeping.

 

Since commencing his roaming role, the 24 year-old has produced five assists in just four games.

 

Klopp has not made any lasting judgements yet and maintains it’s not too different to his customary position.

 

“He’s a smart player but it’s about how we set it up around him in moments when we lose the ball, different formations.


“ It’s not the solution for all the football problems this year but he has the potential to play there, that’s clear.

 

“It’s absolutely fine, we’ll see where it leads to.”

 

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But one person who is not sold on the idea is John Barnes who feels the right back role is where he should remain.

 

Metro (via BonusCodeBets) reported the club legend as saying:

 

“In my opinion, Trent’s number of assists will increase if he is playing as a right back because of his crosses.

 

“A lot of his assists are coming from the right back position like [against] Arsenal, so it’s not that he is getting more assists because he is playing as a midfielder now.

 

“He is very creative in terms of his crosses and passes but I don’t agree with the fact that he is creating more chances from a midfield position but because of his qualities on the ball, he will create chances no matter what position he is playing.

 

Barnes also said deeper analysis is required when you look into the true definition of an assist.

 

“We need to talk about what an assist is. He passed the ball to [Cody] Gakpo [against West Ham] and he turned and did all the work to get a goal so sometimes an assist can be quite easy to get.

 

"Trent played well but we have to ask ourselves the question if he is creating more chances from his position in the midfield? I don’t think he is. He is a good midfielder but he creates more chances with his crosses from the right back position.

 

"I think Liverpool missed him at the right back position. They will benefit more from him playing there than in the midfield even though he did well.”

 

 

 

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My issue with Trent playing at right back position  isn't that he can't do it and that it doesn't offer loads of positives it's that I don't really think that's where he wants to be as a player and it's effecting his game. I'd like to see Trent for a while just as a midfielder with a right back in the side too just to see if we can have the best of his attributes but without this huge space left for the opposition to create easy chances for themselves. With a whole new midfield then who knows what the options can be but if we drop points soon and the fight is truly 100 percent dead for top 4 then use the games left rather than let the season fade out.

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17 minutes ago, Shooter in the Motor said:

I'm glad John Barnes isn't making the decisions. Great player, great activist. Shocking coach.

Yeah. It stinks of Barnesey having to contractually say something controversial for the sake of it.

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I'm not sure about this experiment long term, as I think teams will figure out we have noone on the right wing alot of the time. I think there's a balance to be had though in terms of getting him on the ball in the middle and in the quarterback role a bit more. We actually tried it start of the season but we were shit so it wasn't clear what we were trying to do.

 

If we had a functioning midfield again, Trent could go back to being 15 yards wider most of the time without having to do too much defending, and we be seeing close to 20 assists a season from the right again.

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Barnes was the main reason I ended up supporting Liverpool even though my dad is a blue nose. Fucking adored him.

 

I think the points he is trying to make on race issues is from a common stand point with me, but the way he makes them is almost always divisive and inflammatory rather than debate provoking and self-reflective.

 

He wades into various topics and just swings it round to how shite western/European whites are:

 

Qatar human rights issues - so what if being gay is illegal over there, we’ve got racist police in the uk. Qatar might be bad, but they’re better than they were

 

The bizarre comment about “if Hitler invaded Africa, nobody would have cared”, coupled with his irritation at Ukrainians being put up by people in the uk and jumping in with the “why isn’t this happening for somalians?”

 

As I say, he comes from the same place as me a lot of the time in terms of starting point on views, but he ends up attacking the people he’s trying to open the minds of and it creates wider gaps between sets, factions and sub-sets.

 

Ans has been mentioned by Shooter - his views and opinions on football are pretty much nonsense. Everton levels of dismantling stats with the “yeah, but that’s not a proper assist” similar to pace goals arguments. In my opinion, this exercise is a good transition period for Trent to feel his way into a midfield role - lets him see what type of midfielder he can be. I’m all for it. 
 

Also, if it starts really hurting us and teams exploit it now, kloppo will be able to tweak and change it I’m sure

 

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18 hours ago, Curly said:

Barnes was the main reason I ended up supporting Liverpool even though my dad is a blue nose. Fucking adored him.

 

I think the points he is trying to make on race issues is from a common stand point with me, but the way he makes them is almost always divisive and inflammatory rather than debate provoking and self-reflective.

 

He wades into various topics and just swings it round to how shite western/European whites are:

 

Qatar human rights issues - so what if being gay is illegal over there, we’ve got racist police in the uk. Qatar might be bad, but they’re better than they were

 

The bizarre comment about “if Hitler invaded Africa, nobody would have cared”, coupled with his irritation at Ukrainians being put up by people in the uk and jumping in with the “why isn’t this happening for somalians?”

 

As I say, he comes from the same place as me a lot of the time in terms of starting point on views, but he ends up attacking the people he’s trying to open the minds of and it creates wider gaps between sets, factions and sub-sets.

 

Ans has been mentioned by Shooter - his views and opinions on football are pretty much nonsense. Everton levels of dismantling stats with the “yeah, but that’s not a proper assist” similar to pace goals arguments. In my opinion, this exercise is a good transition period for Trent to feel his way into a midfield role - lets him see what type of midfielder he can be. I’m all for it. 
 

Also, if it starts really hurting us and teams exploit it now, kloppo will be able to tweak and change it I’m sure

 

The Qatar thing was a major own goal but I disagree that his statements on the race arguments are divisive other than a high profile black sportsman going onto right wing controlled media and speaking largely common sense. That's not his fault at all.

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2 hours ago, VladimirIlyich said:

The Qatar thing was a major own goal but I disagree that his statements on the race arguments are divisive other than a high profile black sportsman going onto right wing controlled media and speaking largely common sense. That's not his fault at all.

Fair enough mate - I hear where you’re coming from. I have wrangled with the way I feel about the things he says for a while now, as I love him as a footballer so much and he is coming from a similar, if not the same, starting place as me on the points he makes, but it almost always comes across as whataboutery with him in my opinion. There’s never solutions either - it’s mainly looking backwards and it isn’t often helpful in developing understanding and harmony. 

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24 minutes ago, Curly said:

Fair enough mate - I hear where you’re coming from. I have wrangled with the way I feel about the things he says for a while now, as I love him as a footballer so much and he is coming from a similar, if not the same, starting place as me on the points he makes, but it almost always comes across as whataboutery with him in my opinion. There’s never solutions either - it’s mainly looking backwards and it isn’t often helpful in developing understanding and harmony. 

To be fair to him,he's usually a lone voice of common sense in the sea of racism that these media outlets get to speak on the issue of racism. There is no 'solution' Barnes can give as it's out of his hands and in the hands of racist politicians. He does talk about education,which is the only real compromise but with the people we have in charge now that simply isn't going to happen. 

 

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Spent a lot of time yesterday watching Trent’s positioning. It works well, as he sometimes takes up a half-position if we don’t have the ball. It’s a clever move. 
 

We all hope the defence will be better protected with whatever new signings arrive in, so it’s reasonable to assume that he’ll grow more into his ‘new’ role even better as time goes on (which is actually the one he played in more as a kid). 
 

He can be as effective as De Bruyne there.

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