Trent Alexander-Arnold

[an tha]

47 minutes ago, aRdja said:

 

To be fair, we do in most positions; Mignolet, Moreno, Matip, Lovren, Keita, Lallana, Origi, Sturridge. None of those are in our best XI when everyone’s fit. 

 

Out of that list for me only Matip, Lovren and Keita are anywhere near the kind of level we should be looking at.

 

[Anubis]

Maddock saying Gomez is back next week.

[aRdja]

45 minutes ago, an tha said:

Out of that list for me only Matip, Lovren and Keita are anywhere near the kind of level we should be looking at.

 

Zappacosta is probably the same level as Moreno, Lallana and Origi. Sturridge has a higher ceiling but looks past it now.

[VERBAL DIARRHEA]

Moreno is awful. 

[an tha]

9 minutes ago, aRdja said:

Zappacosta is probably the same level as Moreno, Lallana and Origi. Sturridge has a higher ceiling but looks past it now.

I think it is fair to say that Sturridge has been past it for a good while.

 

We all see things differently but for me out of the clubs at the top end of the league we have the biggest drop off in quality between what are the first choice players and the back ups/squad men

 

Hopefully it is something we are steadily sorting, because we are starting to look the real business and it would be horrible to see a lack of depth/reliable back up be our undoing.

 

Hopefully as we become a team that players see as genuine challengers for top honours we can address depth issues.

[an tha]

5 minutes ago, VERBAL DIARRHEA said:

Moreno is awful. 

I reckon he could do a job as a winger for a mid table championship side, but as a defender he is a joke.

[VERBAL DIARRHEA]

2 minutes ago, an tha said:

I reckon he could do a job as a winger for a mid table championship side, but as a defender he is a joke.

Said that to my lad a while back. A wingback too.

[TheHowieLama]

5 minutes ago, an tha said:

 

We all see things differently but for me out of the clubs at the top end of the league we have the biggest drop off in quality between what are the first choice players and the back ups/squad men

 

 

We are pretty deep in midifield - the back we are carrying a couple injuries.

 

It's really just the drop off in quality in the front that is a concern. 

 

To be able to rotate/bring on Jesus, Mahrez and DeBruyne is a far different kettle.

 

But look at Spurs now Kane out, Son gone - who do they have -  Moura? Llorente? Lamela? 

[VladimirIlyich]

27 minutes ago, TheHowieLama said:

We are pretty deep in midifield - the back we are carrying a couple injuries.

 

It's really just the drop off in quality in the front that is a concern. 

 

To be able to rotate/bring on Jesus, Mahrez and DeBruyne is a far different kettle.

 

But look at Spurs now Kane out, Son gone - who do they have -  Moura? Llorente? Lamela? 

Moura,Llorente and Lamela are good quality back up players. Spurs problem is that their whole style of play is based around Kane and none of those are much of a straight swap for him. Llorente probably was close at his best but has fallen well short in recent years.

[an tha]

1 hour ago, TheHowieLama said:

We are pretty deep in midifield - the back we are carrying a couple injuries.

 

It's really just the drop off in quality in the front that is a concern. 

 

To be able to rotate/bring on Jesus, Mahrez and DeBruyne is a far different kettle.

 

But look at Spurs now Kane out, Son gone - who do they have -  Moura? Llorente? Lamela? 

That isn't a massively unfair shout - i do think that we could/should have a bit more depth but it's a debatable point i suppose.

 

 

[Joey8FrogsLegs]

New long term contract signed. Brilliant news. He’s not the best RB in the world, but he’s pretty good already and in two or three years he could be one of the best.

 

 

[lifetime fan]

Great news. 

 

Thats virtually everyone I’d care about signed new deals now. 

[Jennings]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/46930825

 

good interview...

 

[Paulie Dangerously]

Needs a song. Saw on Twitter "baby Trent duh duh duh duh duh duh baby Trent duh duh duh duh duh " to baby shark. It would work 

[Captain Turdseye]

4 minutes ago, Paulie Dangerously said:

Needs a song. Saw on Twitter "baby Trent duh duh duh duh duh duh baby Trent duh duh duh duh duh " to baby shark. It would work 

 

That’s going round on a loop in my head now. 

 

Cheers. 

[lifetime fan]

19 minutes ago, Paulie Dangerously said:

Needs a song. Saw on Twitter "baby Trent duh duh duh duh duh duh baby Trent duh duh duh duh duh " to baby shark. It would work 

 

Negged. 

[aRdja]

Hope you’re okay @The Guest

[TheHowieLama]

"What a Boy!"

[El Rojo]

2 hours ago, Paulie Dangerously said:

Needs a song. Saw on Twitter "baby Trent duh duh duh duh duh duh baby Trent duh duh duh duh duh " to baby shark. It would work 

Baby Shaq will be appalled at this suggestion. 

[El Rojo]

There’s a Baby Shark reworking called Monkey Bananas which could also be converted into an Adam Lallana chant.

 

 

[TheHowieLama]

2 minutes ago, El Rojo said:

There’s a Baby Shark reworking called Monkey Bananas which could also be converted into an Adam Lallana chant.

 

 

If one was needed 

[Thoth]

 

[Pidge]

He loves placing a request doesn't he, if he wasn't in football he'd have spent his Saturday nights at the local club leaning on the booth trying to get the DJ's attention.  Celebrating like mad because they've finally relented and dropped Bomfunk MCs.

[Pidge]

Given it some thought over a couple of beers and the best scan I can come up with is Whiskey in the jar (Thin Lizzy/Metallica version).

 

"Whiskey in the jar-oh"

"Alexander-Arnold"

 

You don't have to thank me, I'm just back at my parents this weekend and a little bored...

[Caramac]

Jonathan Northcroft of the Sunday Times interview with TAA

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/sport/trent-alexander-arnold-liverpools-local-hero-cbkfvcd90

 

The birds perch, resplendent, on the Liver Building and sunlight makes the Mersey a strip of dancing gold. Such a beautiful day. A day for not caring, for taking life lightly. But that’s not Trent Alexander-Arnold.

“Don’t let them down,” Bill Shankly always said before sending Liverpool players out to play for their public. Trent takes very seriously who he represents.

Family, city, academy; every kid on a Liverpool street, Scousers whatever their background and race: he’s conscious, with each step on the pitch, that he carries them all. We meet on this shimmering day for a conversation based around Trent reaching 50 Premier League games and he’s a revelation right up to his parting shot - that when the 2013-14 title slipped for Liverpool versus Chelsea he was on the Anfield touchline, a ballboy, 15.

We begin with game two of the 50, his first start - at Old Trafford, January 2017. Jurgen Klopp gave no inkling he was playing until lunchtime on matchday. Trent rushed to his room at the team hotel to call his Diane, his mum, who cried tears of joy.

He still lives with her and does his chores, cleaning up after their dogs his main duty. Tyler, his elder brother and manager, only moved out last week. Marcell, his younger sibling, has gone to London with their father Michael to study. A close and grounded clan.

They’re the first ones he plays for. “They’ve done everything for me. My brothers’ football suffered for mine. They would have to sacrifice their [own teams’] games to come to [Liverpool’s] academy to watch me play, which at a young age is hard to understand.

“You don’t think, ‘If we do this, maybe our brother will be a Premier League player’. They’re just thinking, ‘He’s mum’s favourite, it’s not fair.’ I imagine they suffered in silence a hell of a lot so it is about giving back to them, being able to give them platforms to try and make their dreams come true. Because I sometimes feel I took away from their dreams. Everybody wants to be a footballer and especially my elder brother, who I’ve always looked up to, he had to stand on the sidelines in the cold, wet rain and watch me live his dream.”

Their personalities? “Tyler is the clever, rational thinker who calms situations down and will outsmart you with words. Marcell is very emotionally led. And I’d say I’m the quiet, calculated one,” Trent reflects. “I’ve always been shy. Growing up, I never said much.

“But when I got on a football pitch I was a different person; angry, very aggressive. Someone who couldn’t stand losing.”

Game six was the jolt. Trailing at Stoke, he was substituted at half-time. Academy head Alex Inglethorpe, as he still does whenever Trent plays below par, messaged to ask what went wrong. The reflection these exchanges encourage are valuable in helping him learn.

What did go wrong? “I went in overly relaxed. Because I’d played in the Man U game I went thinking it’s not as big, not that important, it’ll probably be quite easy - not knowing how tough a place Stoke is to go. It was a wake-up, that taught me to take each game as serious as the next.”

Game 40, 4-0 v Newcastle, marked Klopp’s 100th win as Liverpool boss. “His personality is similar to mine,” says Trent. “When I look at him he’s a little reserved around the training ground. But he has still got that presence in rooms. Then as soon as you step outside he’s animated, he’s loud, he’s very passionate about the things he believes and the way he wants to play. His players have got to embody that.”

Klopp’s message to him? “To be confident on the pitch. To go out there and feel I’m valued within the squad. Probably not to think of myself as that young player still coming through. My mentality is someone still trying to work hard and progress to be that first name on the team sheet.”

Games 37 and 45 were romps v Watford. In one, Trent bent in a Beckhamesque free-kick. In the other, he became the youngest player to provide three assists in a Premier League game. Both stemmed from work he very strategically began when converting from midfielder to right-back aged 17. “I thought what gives players a better chance of breaking in and usefulness towards the manager? Set-pieces. So you practice the run-up, thought process, everything down to the breathing.

“And what do full-backs do now? Get forward and cross. So it was about learning the different types of crosses: the deeper cross, the cut back, the lofted one and just the firm whip. How to put the ball in dangerous areas or hit targets.”

Seriousness about the game and its technicalities, allied to mentality and natural gifts, encourages you to believe his personal goal - captaining Liverpool and England - is reachable. But his bigger ambitions involve the collective. Trent’s 50th Premier League match was the comeback win at Southampton that underlined Liverpool’s refusal to yield in the title race.

“It’s a belief that we know how good we are and how good we can be,” Trent says “Everyone bought into the idea of wanting to be successful, win trophies, write our names in history. It’s the belief the manager gives us. The belief we give each other. The quality you see looking around the changing room is frightening.”

He is, fans sing, The Scouser in Our Team. Local players winning Premier Leagues are increasingly scarce: the last to play a significant part in a title win was John Terry with Chelsea in 2014-15. “It’s something I’m massively proud of, being able to play for Liverpool. Something I’ve always wanted to do and want to always do,” Trent says.

How would he sum up Scousers? “Passionate about what they believe in. That could be anything: politics, football. Whatever Scousers do, it’s 100% or nothing.

“People who really love their city. It’s hard to find someone from Liverpool who doesn’t live in Liverpool and if you do they’ll probably tell you they want to come back.

“People who tell you straight if you ever change.” His childhood home was in West Derby, two minutes from Melwood, with astroturf pitches five minutes away. “Somewhere football was always around.” Toxteth’s Howard Gayle, Liverpool’s first black player, recently spoke about Trent’s importance given how few from the city’s BAME community have starred at Anfield compared to that community’s success in other sports. “I just want people to be able to look at me and believe anything’s possible,” responds Trent when asked about this.

“To not feel that it’s a million miles away - because it’s not. I want people to look at me and think he’s just a normal lad from Liverpool, living this dream that’s far beyond a dream. And feel anything’s possible with good, hard work.”

Anfield’s green pitch looked “like heaven” when he first saw it. He still feels that. “It takes you back to your childhood.” Don’t let them down: “I think the main thing for fans is the effort you give for the club. They never want to see a player who thinks they’re too big for the club. The club always comes first no matter what,” he says. “If you give your all, that’s all they ask.”

He’s the Liverpool player who clocks up the most community appearances and spent Christmas Day with underprivileged families via his work with ‘An Hour for Others’, a local charity his family help. He’s acutely aware of the privation and sacrifices of some ordinary fans.

“You’ve got middle-aged men who waited 20, 30 years to finally get a ticket and the thought of someone’s dream of going to Anfield...if they get there and see a team not giving everything...it’s a horrible thought. I couldn’t bear to imagine someone walking away from Anfield feeling let down because the team hasn’t shown the love for the club.”

Playing “is about giving thanks to them, putting a smile on their faces. This season we’ve done that and hopefully in a month or six weeks’ time there’ll be a lot of joy around the city.”

Which leads us to the title race, and game 51, today. Five years ago, as that ballboy, watching Gerrard’s mishap against Chelsea, “I was on the halfway line with a horrible view of what happened. But hopefully we’ll be able to make things right and it’ll be us that wins 2-0.” Don’t let them down. “If you asked fans now about 2013-14, they’d say the team gave everything, even if it wasn’t enough. Whatever happens, hopefully that’s the way they’ll see this.

“Everybody watching the season will have respect for both [Liverpool and Manchester City]. Not being big-headed or anything but our team has shown it’s world class and one of the best in recent years in the Premier League.

“Going toe-to-toe with one of the best, if not the best, Premier League teams ever in City is astonishing. Whether it’s us or any other team that deserves respect.”

The Scouser in Our Team is only 20 but a spokesman, a flagbearer already. “Coming back to the title race, who knows what will happen?” he says. “The only thing we can give is our all.”