Telegraph e-paper

Are you watching, Gareth?

Alexander-arnold answers critics with stunning free-kick

By Sam Wallace CHIEF FOOTBALL WRITER at Anfield

Jurgen Klopp once again defended his full-back Trent Alexander-Arnold over accusations of defensive neglect as the England international scored a trademark free-kick in the 2-0 Champions League win over Rangers.

Alexander-arnold, overlooked by Gareth Southgate for England’s recent Nations League games, and then culpable during the 3-3 draw with Brighton on Saturday, scored after seven minutes with a hit from outside the box in what was a comfortable victory for Liverpool.

Klopp said that his player had carried the blame for the team’s shortcomings. “He played a good game, defensively especially, and scored a good goal. Trent doesn’t have a defensive problem – we have a defensive problem, hopefully had [in the past tense].

“Our timing was not right [in previous games] and we take risks in defending. Everybody knows that. When the timing is not right, you open gaps, and these gaps are very often at the back of Trent. Not because of him but because of other situations, and he has to track back and, yes, we were not in the perfect moment. That’s why we adjusted it slightly [against Rangers].”

The manager added: “It was a wonderful goal. What can I say? I could say that’s Trent, but it’s long ago since the last time he scored a free-kick, so I’m happy that he still has that in his locker.”

Klopp picked four attackers and two holding midfielders in a departure from his usual 4-3-3 formation.

Alexander-arnold said that he had not been affected by recent criticism. “No matter what, I always try to think positively,” he said.

“People say things, but for me it’s all about performing for the team. That’s all that matters, getting wins and helping the team. It’s been a slow start to the season for me, but I’m looking forward to the rest of the season.

“We went back to a basic 4-4-2 and played it really well. We made it compact, they couldn’t play through us, they were playing long balls and we picked them off.

“This year is going to be very intense. It’s what we’re used to, three games a week. There’s no excuses. With the games coming thick and fast, it’s exciting for us.”

The next 11 days present Liverpool with the kind of challenge that every fine team with an eye on the important prizes in the game must confront: a visit to the league leaders and, after that, a meeting with the side who seem capable of beating anyone, at any time.

Between those two Premier League games, Jurgen Klopp’s team will venture north to take on Rangers, where the assumption must be that something more serious than was attempted on this evening will be offered by the team from Scotland. Liverpool have been beaten soundly on their only other European away trip so far this season and the game in Glasgow, a week today, will surely present more of a challenge than the one Rangers gave at Anfield. It was just two goals but the scope of Liverpool’s victory was much bigger.

Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s team, the beaten Europa League finalists last season, scarcely created a chance. With the full backing of Ibrox, and not a goal scored yet in three Champions League group defeats, one can only imagine it will be a different prospect next week.

The thoughts of Liverpool first turn on Sunday to Arsenal, the club they have outperformed in recent years now atop the Premier League, and then, seven days after that, Manchester City. The defending champions are a daunting prospect and yet with Liverpool having surpassed them on a number of pivotal occasions in recent years, away at Anfield counts as one of the few serious confrontations for City this season. Should City win easily, who else might stop them?

It was hard to decide whether this was a Liverpool renaissance after such an indifferent start to the season, given the kind of game it became. This was just their fourth win in 10 games in all competitions this summer. Nevertheless, Napoli’s 6-1 victory over Ajax in Amsterdam demonstrated the strength of the Italians in Group A.

Klopp was eager to point out this was a different kind of line-up for Liverpool, with four attackers and just two midfielders. Among them was Darwin Nunez, the striker for whom there is still no Anfield goal. The man who will eventually cost £85million was denied at least three in the first half by a brilliant performance from Allan Mcgregor, the 40-year-old Rangers goalkeeper.

There was no charity from Mohamed Salah when Luis Diaz won a second-half penalty. Salah was grateful for the goal himself. This is the awkward period of adaptation for Nunez, taking on the mantle of the great strikers who have gone before him and, indeed, play alongside him. He appears to be doing the right things and occupying the appropriate spaces, but it will never feel comfortable for him until the goals start rolling in. As for those elusive Nunez goals, Klopp said: “I think everybody saw tonight that this will happen.”

There was at least a strong start for Trent Alexander-arnold, doing what he does best. His free-kick after seven minutes at the Anfield Road end was a thing of beauty and all the more impressive given the performance that followed from Mcgregor. In the final minutes of the game, Klopp substituted Alexander-arnold and let him take the acclaim of Anfield.

Later the Liverpool manager was once again at pains to point out that the defensive problems against Brighton and on other occasions were the team’s to share and not Alexander-arnold’s alone.

“You have to think quicker and do things quicker,” was Van Bronckhorst’s analysis of the Champions League challenge for his players. His five-man defence made the general direction of the game something of an inevitability and in midfield the Liverpudlian John Lundstram and 37-year-old Steven Davis found it tough going. Just a goal down at half-time felt like a reprieve.

That was mostly down to Mcgregor, who is evidently not too old for the business of flinging himself in front of the relentless attacks of one of the best sides in Europe. There were fine saves when Nunez hit the target on three separate occasions in the last 11 minutes of the half, guided in by passes from Jordan Henderson, Salah and Diaz.

The goal had come when Ben Davies, a centre-half who never played for Liverpool but arrived to plug the injury crisis of January 2021, fouled Nunez just outside the area. It could scarcely have been better placed for the right foot of Alexander-arnold, for whom the

spectacular free-kicks have always been less of a problem than the more prosaic question of taking up the right defensive positions. Mcgregor barely moved toward this one, which shaped over the wall and into the top corner.

Van Bronckhorst said that his team had to confront the reality that they were “competing with one of the best sides in Europe. The gap is there, it doesn’t mean you have to lose the game”. What the Rangers manager meant was that there was always a chance, however slim. His team are playing for third place now and a qualifying spot in the knockout stages of the Europa League in January. There was a brief moment when Ryan Kent, the former Liverpool academy player, took the ball on the turn and left Jordan Henderson wondering where he had gone. It was a lonely furrow tended by Alfredo Morelos up against Virgil van Dijk and Joel Matip a long way from the rest of his team-mates.

With Liverpool stuck on one goal for most of the first half, Diaz got the breakthrough eight minutes after half-time when he surged past Lundstram in the area and was tripped by Leon King. Salah never looked like missing from the spot. Rangers did not threaten the goal of Alisson Becker until the very end when Rabbi Matondo, on as a substitute, squeezed a shot past the Brazilian from the left and it was brilliantly lifted over the bar by defender Kostas Tsimikas, who used his shin as he hurtled towards his own goal.

Such is the premium on a Champions League goal for the Scottish side, who are finding this a difficult return to the big competition.

Front Page

en-gb

2022-10-05T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-10-05T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://dailytelegraph.pressreader.com/article/281496460174145

Daily Telegraph