Trent Alexander-Arnold

[labourRed]

Should be dropped by now. But the back up opportunities aren't great. I'd prefer Neco making mistakes than Milner though.

[Exiled_red]

Definitely needs to have a break/rest/be dropped whatever you want to call it. Get him out of the side, have a break and come back refreshed. He's still young and has played a hell of a lot of football over the last few years

[BootRoom]

He's always given the ball away but usually mixes it in with sublime passes and tremendous forward play. He's never been the greatest out-and-out defender anyway, so when the attacking part of his play breaks down, as seems to be the case at the moment, he looks average-to-poor.

[danperkins]

He's always given the ball away but usually mixes it in with sublime passes and tremendous forward play. He's never been the greatest out-and-out defender anyway, so when the attacking part of his play breaks down, as seems to be the case at the moment, he looks average-to-poor.

[Rich]

He was pretty terrible last night... but... our shape and midfield didn't help him.

Usually, a strong pattern of play involves Henderson (when in midfield) to drop deep or usually Gini dropping and going wide, giving TAA a simple out ball. That wasn't happening last night - Thiago was fairly static, was usually covered and didn't drop as deep as Hendo/Fabinho does, and less said about Ox the better but his positioning was awful and hardly ever gave TAA an easy outball to the side.

So while the lad is clearly totally out of form, the formation and the other players didn't help him.

[Exiled_red]

He was pretty terrible last night... but... our shape and midfield didn't help him.

Usually, a strong pattern of play involves Henderson (when in midfield) to drop deep or usually Gini dropping and going wide, giving TAA a simple out ball. That wasn't happening last night - Thiago was fairly static, was usually covered and didn't drop as deep as Hendo/Fabinho does, and less said about Ox the better but his positioning was awful and hardly ever gave TAA an easy outball to the side.

So while the lad is clearly totally out of form, the formation and the other players didn't help him.

I think the midfield was missing Henderson in the first half in particular and that contributed to our problems then but there are other issues too.

[Paul12]

Just looks totally exhausted to me.

[Fredo]

If it's exhaustion, it's a mental thing.

[Norbs]

If it's exhaustion, it's a mental thing.

If you're a doctor then we're ****ed

[Fredo]

If you're a doctor then we're ****ed

Players are thoroughbreds and Trent has had time "off" through injury. I don't think it's physical exhaustion his problem. His running levels seems to be fine to me. His problem is he's been sloppy and not playing the right ball or trying complicated passes which ended in the opponents feet. Maybe he thinks he's too good?

He's still a young player at 22 to be fair to him.

[Fredo]

I'm pretty sure if he wasn't up to a level of being able to play, he wouldn't have been anywhere near that starting line up. This is not his problem. He's 22, has dips and is in the middle of one. It's exacerbated by other players being in the same situation. Doesn't help the world is ****ed everwhere else.

[wiw]

He's being pressed higher - you can see it on both wings with both the fullbacks and the two forwards. As soon as Robertson or Trent receive the ball they have someone sprinting towards them, the inside pass is cut off, so he's having to go long and/or aimless. I think we need to adjust how to build up attacks

[Irishnev]

He's being pressed higher - you can see it on both wings with both the fullbacks and the two forwards. As soon as Robertson or Trent receive the ball they have someone sprinting towards them, the inside pass is cut off, so he's having to go long and/or aimless. I think we need to adjust how to build up attacks

You can clearly see this as a strategy used by opponents now - people are closing him down all the time and his ability to playmake from RB is being compromised. The amount of aimless lofted balls he played last night was shocking for such a renowned passer

[Fredo]

He's being pressed higher - you can see it on both wings with both the fullbacks and the two forwards. As soon as Robertson or Trent receive the ball they have someone sprinting towards them, the inside pass is cut off, so he's having to go long and/or aimless. I think we need to adjust how to build up attacks

Good point. I did notice that our centre backs are being pressed a bit more as well. Seen this especially at Newcastle, but that might have been due to Phillips playing there, so our building up play wasn't great.

Southampton had so many bodies in their own penalty area last night that I think we ran out of ideas to play through that and rushed our crosses and passes.

[baitman]

You can clearly see this as a strategy used by opponents now - people are closing him down all the time and his ability to playmake from RB is being compromised. The amount of aimless lofted balls he played last night was shocking for such a renowned passer

Its a bit of a worry that this is happening and there is not much change of tactics from klopp.