With Europe’s home leagues breaking for the newest set of worldwide fixtures, one in every of this week’s largest speaking factors has been Trent Alexander-Arnold continued exile from Gareth Southgate’s England squad.
Regardless of being one in every of Jurgen Klopp and Liverpool’s most trusted gamers, Alexander-Arnold, 23, has discovered himself frozen out in the case of representing his nation.
Though he made his senior worldwide debut underneath Southgate again in 2019, the 23-year-old has solely gone on to win an additional 16 caps and with this winter’s Qatar World Cup quick approaching, followers and pundits are starting to ask why.
One one that thinks he is aware of why Southgate could not have complete religion in Liverpool’s quantity 66 is former Reds’ midfielder Stan Collymore.
“All through my profession, I performed with Gareth Southgate twice, as soon as in Crystal Palace’s youth setup, and once more at Aston Villa the place he was my skipper, and I can let you know for sure that he likes spherical pegged gamers for spherical holes,” Collymore stated in an unique interview.
“In the case of full-backs, Southgate’s first precedence is defending after which attacking and sadly for Alexander-Arnold, as everyone knows, his recreation could be very a lot the other of that.”
Collymore is in fact right in his evaluation. Alexander-Arnold is a modern-day attacking full-back and a participant who’s able to offering the creativity as soon as solely related to a central midfielder.
Nevertheless, reaffirming Southgate’s considerations about Alexander-Arnold’s defensive potential, Collymore urged that John Stones and Harry Maguire’s underwhelming type has additionally hampered the 23-year-old’s probabilities
“Alexander-Arnold goes to provide his supervisor a complete host of offensive and inventive choices, however the largest concern with him is his potential when going again in the direction of his personal aim, and that has been the case for him whereas taking part in in an excellent Liverpool crew, so you may maybe perceive Southgate’s warning,” the 51-year-old added.
“I believe in Southgate’s thoughts, he’s apprehensive that the likes of John Stones and Maguire, who aren’t precisely within the type of their lives, would come underneath extra defensive stress if Alexander-Arnold had been on the proper aspect of the backline.”
