Peter Crouch has claimed that Trent Alexander-Arnold’s passing is as good as Liverpool legends Steven Gerrard and Xabi Alonso.
The 21-year-old right-back has been in amazing form over the last couple of season and was once again at his best on Sunday when the Reds moved eight points clear at the top of the Premier League table with a 3-1 win against title rivals Manchester City.
Ex-Liverpool forward Crouch has been blown away by the accuracy of Alexander-Arnold’s passing and has offered some extremely high praise for the young right-back.
“They’re re-defining the full-back term,” said Crouch on Match of the Day 2 on Sunday night when discussing Alexander-Arnold and left-back Andrew Robertson.
“Some of Trent’s passing is as good as a midfielder’s.
“I’ve played with Steven Gerrard and Xabi Alonso and I put him right up there with some of the passing.”
In response to Crouch’s claim, host Mark Chapman said: “Wow.”
OPINION
According to stats by WhoScored, Alexander-Arnold only completed 69 per cent of his passes against Man City, which was the lowest pass accuracy out of any player – on both teams – who started the match. In the 2-1 win against Leicester last month, he only completed 49.2 per cent. Alexander-Arnold’s pass accuracy is not great but the types of passes that he is making are very ambitious and are worth the risk of trying to pull them off. Stats by WhoScored also show that Kevin De Bruyne [3.9] is the only player in the Premier League to average more key passes per match than Alexander-Arnold [3.5] while the England international ranks seventh in the league for the average number of long passes completed by outfield players. Alexander-Arnold spreads play, he provides chances from deep and definitely has the vision of some of the best playmakers in the world. You can see why he’s been compared to Gerrard and Alonso.
