- Oct 3, 2013
- 37,326
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Trent has absolutely regressed defensively. He was never great at it but you lived with it because of his playmaking. He was never THIS bad. We can say why it has happened but the team as a whole is a mess right now. He does need to play further up the field though. He should be playing further up the pitch right now.There’s two separate issues with TAA.
1.) his lack of defensive skill/awareness. That was on display on Arsenal’s 2nd goal where he rushed over to try to be the hero for the tackle instead of staying in his lane which left acres of space when the attacker cut back inside.
You can coach/train that a bit, but ultimately it’s something that’s really hard to develop if a player doesn't have. Liverpool used to cover/minimize a lot of that by having a very mobile midfield, CBs, and LB so that either a midfielder could drop back to cover, a mobile CB could range over to cover, or the LB could basically play a more LCB role for a bit and let one of the CBs move more towards an RCB role. Basically when possible, they shifted so the right half of their defense looked a lot more like a back 5 with TAA at RWB instead of a back 4 with him at RB.
As we saw yesterday, Henderson/Thiago in 2022 is not a remotely mobile midfield, Tsimikas was providing very little defensive shape, and the CBs were far less mobile as well, in part because the midfield wasn’t able to drop as much meaning they had to stay more central, and in part because it looks like VVD has lost a step this year.
2.) His lack of defensive effort. This has come and gone over the years, but it was in full force in the Napoli game and at times yesterday. It’s this that would be the real concern if I’m someone like Southgate and should be a bigger concern than Klopp seems to be making of it.
Gomez should be playing RB. A lot of teams are playing a more CB style player at one of their fullbacks. Arsenal is doing this with Ben White for example. Will see what happens when Trent is healthy though.
kudos for Martinelli but this isn’t exactly a scalp anymore. Thought Gomez did pretty good on him though.It was bound to happen and still Klopp decided to start Alexander-Arnold. Maybe he’ll learn something from it so that’s good for you.
Trent has regressed but he has still won every trophy at Liverpool and been a part of multiple 90+ point teams as a right back. That’s not too shabby.
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