Gary Neville has said he can relate with Trent Alexander-Arnold as the Liverpool right-back put in a dismal performance against Manchester City.
The defender’s display was perhaps the only negative on a day when Liverpool moved 11 points clear at the top of the table and overcame the reigning English champions. But the Reds were fortunate not to be punished down their right flank as Jeremy Doku repeatedly bypassed Alexander-Arnold.
The City winger completed 15 dribbles at the Etihad with Alexander-Arnold replaced in the latter stages of the game by Arne Slot. Several Liverpool team-mates tracked back to help the England international on an afternoon that highlighted the defensive fragilities in Alexander-Arnold’s game.
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Neville, a self-confessed ‘stalwart’ in the Manchester United team at right-back over the ‘90s and ‘00s, can relate with Alexander-Arnold’s tough experience at City.
“Doku has played well and gone past Trent a lot of times,” Neville said on Sky Sports. “Trent will be in the changing rooms thinking 'How have we kept a clean sheet, he got past me about 46 times’.
“I unashamedly, at many points in my career, needed my team-mates to come over and give me a hand when the opposition player is a box of tricks. Trent has needed that today with Doku. [Mohamed] Salah has been back a lot to help out and double up.”
Meanwhile, Pep Guardiola claimed both Doku and his fellow winger Savinho were ‘incredible’ for City, with City’s No. 11 admitted he was disappointed not to deliver more from his attacking opportunities against Alexander-Arnold.
“I had a lot of attacking situations but after the two goals that they scored they played very deep,” Doku told Sky Sports. “They then played on the counter attack so it was hard for us to find spaces. Some game are like that.
“I passed him [Alexander-Arnold] a lot of times but it was then the final pass or I don't know. The most important thing after passing is to create something from it, and I played some good balls in front of the goal but we have to score. We have to analyse the game and see what I can do better and what we can do better as a team.”
The display from Alexander-Arnold comes on the back of Liverpool’s 2-2 draw at Villa Park in midweek, another game in which he struggled to contain the opposition’s lively attackers on the left wing.
The Liverpool academy graduate was also criticized earlier this year by Sky’s pundits after the draw against Manchester United last month, when Roy Keane memorably claimed he was more likely to play for Tranmere Rovers than Real Madrid.
