Has Trent Alexander-Arnold found his most effective position in a hybrid midfield role?

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Trent Alexander-Arnold scored a crucial late goal for Liverpool for the second week running against Fulham, as he got the Reds’ winner in the dying minutes. Once one of the most feared attacking full-backs, but perhaps one of the most preyed on defensive ones, Alexander-Arnold is changing his game, and Jürgen Klopp may have found the best formula to get the most out of his no.66’s undoubted talent. And it’s got Trent flourishing for Gareth Southgate’s England too.

Back in 2021, after Southgate trialled Alexander-Arnold in midfield, Klopp asked, “Why make the best right-back in the world a midfielder? I don’t understand that. As if the right-back position is not as important as the others.” But now the German has seen the attraction with his €65 million valued Englishmen.

Trent’s inversion

The inversion of full-backs has been one of the hottest topics on tacticians minds in top level football in recent years. Pioneered by Pep Guardiola at Bayern Munich and now Manchester City, we have seen top Premier League clubs allow one of their full-backs to invert into the midfield area to create a double pivot, and thus overloads in the centre of midfield, and allow direct balls to the wingers to get them one-on-one with their opposing defender. João Cancelo and Oleksandr Zinchenko are just some of the beneficiaries in recent times, and with Alexander-Arnold’s world-class passing and ability to receive the ball under pressure, he could be the most perfectly suited full-back in world football to the inversion.

Klopp began experimenting with Alexander-Arnold in the hybrid midfield role towards the back end of last season, as Liverpool were struggling for results and had a real uphill battle to secure a place in the top four. They didn’t quite manage to make the Champions League places, missing out by four points, but results and performances drastically improved. Their only defeat in 24 Premier League matches since the tactical switch last April came in controversial VAR dominated circumstances away at Tottenham this season.

There has been a clear change in style from Klopp’s team in the last 12 months, with far less reliance on getting their full-backs high, firing crosses into the box and ultimately getting assists. In the 2019/20 season, Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson registered a whopping 25 combined assists - this season they have just one between them after 14 games. The number of open-play crosses Liverpool are making has also dropped from a high of 17.66 per game in the 2019/20 title season to just 10.71 during this campaign. Over that same timeframe, Alexander-Arnold’s crossing from open play has fallen from 6.74 per 90 minutes to just 2.34 this term.

Speaking ahead of Liverpool’s trip to Sheffield United, Klopp bemoaned, "Trent can play midfield, we all knew that and he can play the role really well. If he wants to be good he has to be influential from all different areas because it makes us better. Trent became one of the most successful players in the history of Liverpool. In recent history, he became a Premier League player as a right-back so he will play wherever it's best for us and that's just how it is and Trent sees it exactly the same way."

The German then added, "I'm not stubborn and don't want to play him midfield, not at all, but I am not part of the discussion. You [the media] can discuss it as much as you want but it will not have any influence. He wants to play and from my point of view he has to be influential and we have to make sure we help him with the positioning. If you want to be good he has to be influential from all different areas because it just makes us better if he plays a good game."

Against Fulham, Klopp brought on Joe Gomez with around half an hour to go, trusting Alexander-Arnold in the no.6 role and giving him more freedom to roam forward and get into dangerous positions where his quality could really hurt the opposition. While there is plenty of talk of Liverpool brining a top quality holding midfielder to Anfield to complete their new midfield trifecta alongside Dominik Szoboszlai and Alexis Mac Allister, perhaps signing a more orthodox right-back, and moving Alexander-Arnold permanently to the defensive midfield role may be a superior option for Klopp.