The evolution of Alexander-Arnold – but what’s his best position?

Just what is Trent Alexander-Arnold’s best position?

It is a question pondered by fans, pundits and managers and, as the 25-year-old prepares for Liverpool’s 2024-25 campaign, all eyes will be on new manager Arne Slot’s answer.

He has spent the majority of his senior career with the Reds at right-back but, with lingering doubts over his defending, some believe he should be used in midfield – where he has lined up for England in six of his last seven starts.

Former England defender Gary Neville has described Alexander-Arnold as a generational talent, while ex-England boss Gareth Southgate said he has “as good a passing range as anybody in world football”.

Alexander-Arnold was absent for Liverpool’s tour of America but started Sunday’s final pre-season friendly against Sevilla at right-back – a position youngster Conor Bradley has also impressed in.

But, with his contract expiring in the summer and persistent links to Real Madrid, is it time to utilise Alexander-Arnold in a more regular advanced role?

“He’d played in midfield in Pep Lijnders’ Under-16s, at the base of the diamond,” Tim Jenkins, a former analyst and assistant coach for Liverpool Under-21s, tells BBC Sport about Alexander-Arnold’s early development.

“He was right in the middle of the pitch and involved in everything.

“When he went into the Under-18s with Neil Critchley, they started to help him use his physical attributes a bit, so he played on the outside as a right winger or a right full-back.

“And before the Under-16s, he’d played as a centre-half and a full-back for Michael Beale in the Under-15s age group.”

It was with Critchley, now Blackpool manager, and his Under-18s side that Alexander-Arnold’s transition into a right-back accelerated.

Before the 2016-17 season, aged just 17, he trained with the first team during pre-season.

“I remember he had a real purple patch after he’d done pre-season with the first team then came back to play with the Under-21s,” says Jenkins, who is now assistant head coach at Wolverhampton Wanderers.

“We played one game against Leicester at home and Jurgen [Klopp] came to watch. We were 4-0 up before half-time and he’d created everything from the right. He looked like he’d gone up three or four levels.

“A week later, we played Tottenham away and it was the same again. He was head and shoulders the best player on the pitch. He scored a goal from long distance in that game. It wasn’t too long after that he made his debut for the first team in the League Cup.”

In January 2017, Alexander-Arnold made his first Premier League start in a 1-1 draw with Manchester United.

“That whole season he’d been building up to that moment,” Jenkins says. “He had real momentum about what he was doing.”

“The game has evolved now,” says former Liverpool, Blackburn Rovers and Republic of Ireland player Jason McAteer, who, like Alexander-Arnold, played as a right-back and a central midfielder during his career.

“Today’s full-back is a lot more like a wing-back. You’ve got to get forward. You’ve got to get balls into the box. And you have this hybrid role where you come into midfield.

“Trent has got that many attributes that you’ve got to get him into the team. You look at Trent now and he’s grown up, he’s evolved.”

That evolution has seen Alexander-Arnold’s influence at Anfield grow. With a range of passing, vision and creativity honed during his past as a midfielder, his unique skillset has allowed him to become a playmaker from full-back.

In the 2018-19 season – the first campaign in which he started more than half of Liverpool’s Premier League games – Alexander-Arnold registered 12 assists, the third-highest tally in the top flight.

His 13 assists the following season was second only to Kevin de Bruyne, and only team-mate Mohamed Salah bettered his tally of 12 for the 2021-22 campaign.

Last season, Alexander-Arnold’s average of 5.25 shot-creating actions per 90 minutes in the Premier League and Europa League ranked in the 99th percentile among full-backs in Europe’s top five divisions.

He was also in the 99th percentile when it came to expected assisted goals per 90 (0.37) and passes attempted (87.71) and the 98th percentile for progressive passes (8.69).

He ranked eighth among outfielders in the Premier League for total successful long passes (147) and third for switches of play (32).

“If you look at the assists from earlier in his career, they came from wide,” Jenkins says. “More recently, he’s been able to move inside into the half-space and deliver from there. Trent has had an ideal skillset to adapt to how the game has changed.

“If you see footage of him playing when he was little, he was basically the same player. You’d see all the driving runs, the physical attributes, his ball-striking and his passing over distance. He’s just adapted his strengths into whatever position he plays.”

“I started as a right-back and progressed into playing on the right wing,” McAteer says of his own transition into midfield.

“When Bruce Rioch came to Bolton, I evolved into a centre-midfielder. I quickly had to learn that your head has got to be on a swivel, that the whole pitch is in play.

“You have to learn how to play with your back to play, how to open your body up and how to make runs to lose your marker and finish chances when they come along.

“Reading the game is a big thing for a central midfielder, knowing where you are on the pitch.”

Those are all attributes Alexander-Arnold possesses. His distinctive approach to the full-back role, taking up positions near the middle of the pitch, gives him a leg-up when it comes to starting as a midfielder.

It was understandable, then, that Southgate deployed the Liverpool player centrally at Euro 2024 given he lacked an obvious midfield partner for Declan Rice.

McAteer, though, believes Alexander-Arnold was set up to struggle in Germany.

“We look at him as this passing genius, great with the ball at his feet and creative,” he says.

“But in the modern game you need to be protected. I think with England he was hung out to dry a bit.

“His qualities are there to be seen, but you can be exposed. Time and space are your best mates in football. If you’re not given that by the player alongside you, defending and taking players away, you’re not going to flourish.

“Trent’s weakest attribute is his defending and he was playing as a deep-lying midfielder. He was great on the ball, but without it he was exposed and he became a bit of a scapegoat.”

In a press conference in June, Slot – who tends to play a 4-3-3 or 4-2-1-3 formation, was asked directly about where he planned to play Alexander-Arnold, but declined to answer.

“I think that hybrid full-back role is still his best position, where he can roll into the inside of the pitch,” Jenkins adds.

“He can be a full-back when you haven’t got the ball and a midfielder when you have.

“Klopp would say that sometimes Trent will be on the outside, sometimes he’ll be on the inside – wherever he is, he’s just going to be Trent.”