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´Trent is a super talent´ – Southgate certain Alexander-Arnold will reclaim England place

SoccerNews in English Premier League 18 Mar 2021

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Trent Alexander-Arnold has not made the cut for England despite being one of the few Liverpool players to deliver high standards during the Reds’ poor run.

Gareth Southgate named a 26-man squad for this month’s upcoming World Cup qualifiers against San Marino, Albania and Poland.

Five full-backs were included in the selection, but Alexander-Arnold, a Champions League and Premier League winner in the past two years, was not among them, casting doubt over his participation in Euro 2020.

Manchester City’s Kyle Walker, Chelsea’s Reece James and Atletico Madrid’s Kieran Trippier were preferred to Alexander-Arnold at right-back, while left-backs Ben Chilwell and Luke Shaw were also selected.

Trippier has just returned from a ban imposed by the Football Association for a breach of betting rules.

Alexander-Arnold and his Liverpool team-mates have endured a tough time in the Premier League since the turn of the year, picking up just four wins.

The reigning champions have lost eight league games in 2021, though 22-year-old Alexander-Arnold has kept his performance levels high.

Manchester United full-back Shaw is the only defender to have created more chances (52) than Alexander-Arnold (47) so far this season, while the Liverpool man ranks highest of any player in the competition for passes played into the box (315).

Alexander-Arnold’s accuracy from crosses and corners tallies at 18.81 per cent, which does represent a dip compared to 21.41 last season, and 29.21 in 2018-19.

His efforts this season have resulted in one goal and three assists – he teed up 13 goals last term – though Liverpool’s misfiring strike force have to shoulder much of that responsibility, with only club-mate Andrew Robertson and West Ham’s Aaron Cresswell (both nine) having crafted more big chances among Premier League defenders than Alexander-Arnold (eight).

Alexander-Arnold also boasts an impressive 69.05 per cent tackle success rate, from a total of 42 attempted tackles, higher than James (68.42) and Walker (65.38), though slightly lower than Trippier’s rate of 69.23 per cent from 39 attempted tackles in LaLiga. Alexander-Arnold had a 61.82 per cent success rate last term, so there has been a marked improvement.

The youngster’s set-piece delivery could also be a miss for England, with Alexander-Arnold having created 21 goalscoring opportunities from corners or free-kicks in the league this term – only four players have managed more in the top flight.

A SUPER TALENT

Explaining his decision, Southgate conceded Alexander-Arnold was “unfortunate” to miss out, though he singled out Matty Cash of Aston Villa and Luke Ayling of Leeds United as examples of the strength in depth England possess at right-back, while Aaron Wan-Bissaka was not even mentioned.

Wan-Bissaka’s international future is up in the air, with reports the Manchester United defender may choose to represent DR Congo having been consistently overlooked by Southgate, but the England boss has no doubt over Alexander-Arnold’s long-term importance to the Three Lions.

“There’s some areas of the pitch where we’ve got incredible competition for places,” Southgate told a news conference.

“Trent has been very unfortunate. The last few weeks he’s definitely taken steps in the right direction. Reece and Trippier have had exceptional seasons. Kyle is in great form.

“Matty at Aston Villa, Luke at Leeds. It’s a remarkable position of strength. What I said to Trent – I’ve made that same call to Kyle and Kieran in the past, their response was a good one.

“Trent is a super talent and I’m certain he’ll play a big part with England in the future. We could be sat here [for the Euros] and he’s with us.”

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