Steve McManaman heaped praised on Liverpool defender Trent Alexander-Arnold ahead of his side’s Champions League clash with Red Star Belgrade.
The BT Sport pundit shared that he thought the progression the right-back had made in recent seasons was impressive and praised Alexander-Arnold’s work-ethic.
McManaman added that while the 20-year-old has his faults, the sky’s the limit for him if he continues to keep progressing in the manner he previously had.
“He’s a great kid, over the last two years I’ve seen him at the academy and his progression and his level of progression so quickly and his willingness to keep on working…” said McManaman on BT Sport (Wednesday October 24th, 19:39pm), in a clip which can be watched on the broadcaster’s official Twitter account.
“As Rio (Ferdinand) rightly said he’s got faults, everyone has got faults, he works hard and the sky’s the limit for him, it really is if he keeps on progressing in the manner he has.”
OPINION
Alexander-Arnold recently found himself dropped from the Reds’ first-team for a couple of games but returned to Jurgen Klopp’s starting line-up against Red Star Belgrade on Wednesday night. The 20-year-old full-back impressed as he used his pace and attacking threat to really cause Red Star a problem on their right-flank. While there was a couple of occasions where he didn’t get back into position quick enough, overall his performance was a positive one. Hopefully the 20-year-old will keep his place in the first-team as a result as with him at right-back, it allows Joe Gomez to play at centre-back alongside Virgil van Dijk. Gomez and Van Dijk seem like the best central defensive partnership at the club so if Alexander-Arnold keeps his place at right-back, it keeps that intact as Klopp won’t choose to play Gomez on the right-side of his defence. Also as McManaman pointed out Alexander-Arnold has been able to improve very quickly in a short period of time, and it’s easy to summarise that the reason for that is due to him getting regular first-team football at Anfield.
