Gary Neville spoke in-depth about Trent Alexander-Arnold on the latest edition of Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football.
Before Leicester City and Nottingham Forest locked horns at the King Power Stadium, the pundit analyzed the Liverpool defender’s start to the 2022/23 season.
So far this campaign, Alexander-Arnold has been a pale shadow of the player we’ve seen previously tear up the Premier League.
Teams have opted to target his side of the pitch, with Brighton the latest side to enjoy a lot of success against him.
Alexander-Arnold was at fault for the Seagulls’ opening goal in what was a hugely entertaining 3-3 draw at Anfield last Saturday.
Unsurprisingly, Liverpool and Alexander-Arnold were a hot topic of debate of MNF, with Neville and Jamie Carragher both offering their two cents on the subject.
Given he was a right-back himself, Neville decided to focus primarily on Alexander-Arnold and the analysis he provided really was of the highest order.
Read more – Liverpool fan’s thread goes viral explaining their ‘atrocious’ start to the season.
During the marvelous segment on the show, the Manchester United hero highlighted the Liverpool man’s creative numbers over the past four seasons and touched on the four ‘principles of full-back play’.
Neville also boldly stated that Alexander-Arnold has the potential to be “the best right-back the world has ever produced” if he fixes the defensive side of his game.
Oh and there was a ‘live demo’ thrown in for good measure.
Check out footage of the superb analysis…
Videos: Neville’s fascinating segment on Alexander-Arnold
“That is ABSOLUTELY OBSCENE” 😱@GNev2 praises Trent-Alexander Arnold’s contributions going forward for Liverpool but highlights where the defender could improve defensively 👇 pic.twitter.com/nacFGX61sv
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) October 3, 2022
“We’ll probably have the best right-back the world has ever produced!”
Gary Neville explains how Trent Alexander-Arnold can improve his game to become one of the all-time greats ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/LzhxwlmzsT
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) October 3, 2022
What did Neville say about Alexander-Arnold?
Part of what Neville said was: “Trent has been exceptional for 4/5 years for Liverpool. Every full-back now needs to have both attacking and defensive strengths. His attacking statistics are absolutely ridiculous – one of the great talents this country as produced.
“I said a couple of years ago that this could hurt Trent. In these last 7/8 games – Liverpool have conceded most of their goals on Trent’s side. He’s not a young player anymore. Sometimes he doesn’t do the basics and that surprises me.”
On Alexander-Arnold’s defending style, part of Neville’s analysis included: “He doesn’t always sprint back, he ambles back at times. Sometimes he’s far too upright and you can’t sprint from that position. You need to be crouched as a full-back, like a tiger ready to pounce.
“He always jogs out in an upright position. Against Fulham, he wasn’t scanning for the second goal. He didn’t even know Mitrovic was there.
“Against Brighton, his body shape was closed for the first goal. He was too narrow. He wasn’t in the right position, he wasn’t alert and he panicked. He’s doing the hard part of the game, it’s the basics where he’s struggling.”
Neville then went on to make his claim about Alexander-Arnold potentially being the world’s best in the position and similar to the iconic figure of Cafu, quipping: “I think these are really basic things for him. The hard part of the game he is doing.
“No full-back I have ever seen in this country can do what he’ll do. If he works on those four things, we’ll have the best right back the game has ever produced.
“This is special. This is a Cafu. I would urge him to work on it for a few months. We have games all the time. There might be a negative in him not going to a World Cupthis could be the biggest six weeks of his career.”
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