Trent Alexander-Arnold may be the only Scouser on show in Sunday's Merseyside derby. Richard Jolly explains that while he is a throwback in that respect, Alexander-Arnold is an innovator in everything else.
The right-back as playmaker, the key creator who doubles up as a defender.
That is Trent Alexander-Arnold.
While Liverpool near the landmark of their first league title in three decades, their homegrown full-back may be one swing of the right boot away from a personal record: he has already equalled his own best of 12 assists in a Premier League campaign, the most ever by a defender.
The job description can feel a misnomer. Just as Roberto Firmino feels like the best defender among attackers, so Alexander-Arnold is the outstanding attacker among defenders. His peers, though, tend to be midfielders: the best in particular.
Only Kevin De Bruyne has more assists.
Among Premier League regulars, only De Bruyne and his Manchester City team-mate Riyad Mahrez have a higher expected assists per 90 minutes. They could be called the more conventional creators. Alexander-Arnold is the more unorthodox assister.
On the one hand, it makes sense to think of him as a one-man right flank: full-back and winger rolled into one. The narrowness of Liverpool’s midfield is designed in part to free up room for the full-backs.
They rarely stray near to the touchline, a trait shown by the statistics. Jordan Henderson has delivered 52 crosses, more than any of Jurgen Klopp’s other midfielders - Alexander-Arnold has sent in six times as many.
His tally of 313 is 69 clear of De Bruyne and 95 ahead of Everton left-back Lucas Digne. The crossing leaderboard shows the shift in football: Burnley's Dwight McNeil, in sixth, is the first old-fashioned winger, behind those who often deliver the ball from infield or deeper positions.
Alexander-Arnold and Kevin De Bruyne have both mastered David Beckham-style crosses, bending the ball in when 25 or 30 yards from the goal-line.
The full-backs’ role as suppliers at Anfield is shown by the assist charts. Henderson, with five, is the only midfielder with more than two. Alexander-Arnold has one more assist than the entire midfield.
Liverpool’s top five in the standings represent a different sort of front five: Alexander-Arnold, Mohamed Salah, Firmino, Sadio Mane and Andrew Robertson. It highlights the tactics: Liverpool’s 4-3-3 can become 2-3-5 when they have the ball with the flying men on the flanks going past the midfield.
Alexander-Arnold’s more advanced positioning is shown by the way he has had more shots than any Liverpool midfielder. Perhaps it is a role reversal. The midfielders are charged with finding the full-backs, not vice-versa.
Alexander-Arnold provides, on average, 2.6 key passes per game, finding himself in increasingly familiar company with Leicester's James Maddison, Aston Villa midfielder Jack Grealish and the preeminent De Bruyne; Digne is the only other full-back in the top 19. But there is no Liverpool midfielder in the top 70, showing the extent to which the full-backs have assumed their creative responsibilities.
To put it another way, every club has at least one midfielder in the top 50: except the one on course for a record points tally.
Those passes can be longer. The technical excellence that has allowed Alexander-Arnold to cross so well and to become a set-piece specialist is reflected in his greater use of diagonal balls, allowing Liverpool to switch play from right to left.
It puts him alongside some of the division’s deep-lying playmakers. His 4.9 long passes per game – up from 4.0 last season and just 0.9 in 2017-18 – compares with Jonjo Shelvey (4.8) and Ruben Neves (5.2). Tellingly, he averages more long passes away from home, where Liverpool can counter-attack more readily and he can spread play on the break.
Few right-backs rub shoulders with the quarterbacks. Alexander-Arnold can be the opposite of some of his supposed peers.
It may be simplistic to call him the best attacking right-back, Aaron Wan-Bissaka the best defensive one and Ricardo Pereira the best all-round one. The numbers demonstrate how different they are. The Manchester United man averages just 0.3 completed crosses, 0.8 key passes and 1.1 long balls. The Leicester player’s season will end with him on 0.3 crosses, 1.0 key passes and 2.1 long balls per game.
Alexander-Arnold finds a team-mate with more than seven times as many crosses.
Pereira and Wan-Bissaka compensate in other ways: with far more tackles and interceptions. In part, that reflects the reality that their sides have less of the ball than Liverpool and have to spend more time recovering it. Yet it also highlights the way Alexander-Arnold is genuinely original.
Among some full-backs, Robertson and Digne offer some similarities, but without the full range on the ball or the total of assists. Among right-backs, no one is remotely comparable.
Alexander-Arnold is the Anfield revolutionary who has helped change the Premier League’s pecking order.
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