Analysis: How Alexander-Arnold redefined the right-back role

As Trent Alexander-Arnold confirms he will leave Anfield this summer, football writer Alex Keble analyses how the much-admired right-back has redefined his position while starring for Liverpool. 

Trent Alexander-Arnold has attracted more debate and has received more critiques of his role and his abilities than any other player in living memory.

But in the fullness of time, after he has left Liverpool at the end of this season, those conversations will melt away, leaving Alexander-Arnold to be remembered plain and simply as one of the best right-backs we’ve ever seen.

History tends to do that, crystallising the best times with a misty-eyed nostalgia and softening arguments that felt so important at the time but come to seem so petty in retrospect.

All that will remain, quite rightly, is the image of Alexander-Arnold as a beautiful footballer; as a singular talent who played an irreplaceable role in the Liverpool revival.

Unique style makes Trent Liverpool’s best right-back ever

The fact he is talked about so much - that he divides and confounds - is actually a testament to Alexander-Arnold’s uniqueness. We’ve never really had the vocabulary to talk about Liverpool’s right-back because we’ve never seen anyone quite like him before.

Part-David Beckham and part-Cafu, pseudo-midfielder and pseudo-right-back, Alexander-Arnold is one of a kind.

Since joining Liverpool's academy as a six-year-old, Alexander-Arnold has risen through the club's ranks to win multiple trophies, including two Premier League titles and a UEFA Champions League, and to become maybe the best right-back in the club’s history.

He will be remembered for those strange, fading diagonals hit almost with the outside of the right boot; for those whipped deliveries to the back post; for the rolled-down socks and swaggering style; and, most of all, for that lightning bolt of inspiration as he strolled away from the corner flag and spotted Barcelona players on their heels back in 2019.

Remarkable goals and assists record speaks to Trent’s unique take on the role

When you look at the raw numbers, it’s hard to believe anybody could doubt his value.

Alexander-Arnold has 64 assists, more than any defender in Premier League history, and 82 goal involvements, second only to Leighton Baines in his position.

All-time most PL assists by a defender 

All-time most PL goal involvements by a defender 

His influence on the competition since his Premier League debut in December 2016 is even more impressive, highlighting how Alexander-Arnold has gone above and beyond the usual limits for a defender.

Since his debut, only Kevin De Bruyne, Son Heung-min and Mohamed Salah have assisted more goals, while only De Bruyne, Salah and Bruno Fernandes have created more chances.

That’s a stunning record. And the deeper stats are even better.

Alexander-Arnold's all-time attacking stats

*Rank among defenders since Alexander-Arnold's debut

It speaks volumes that only De Bruyne, Son, Salah and Fernandes – two No 10s and two wide forwards – can match Alexander-Arnold’s attacking output, and a testament to the way he has redefined the right-back role.

Because even in an age of full-back revolutions, Alexander-Arnold is an exception.

He began as a flying full-back for Jurgen Klopp’s first Liverpool team, defined by a narrow front three and two ultra-attacking overlappers, before becoming more Beckham-esque as he hovered on the right-hand side of the penalty box, ready to deliver.

All of Alexander-Arnold's PL assists

Click to zoom in on image.

More recently, he became an inverted right-back for Klopp’s "Liverpool 2.0", as the manager called it, when the box-midfield was embraced.

But even this description is too limited to describe him. Arne Slot, picking up from Klopp, has deployed Alexander-Arnold in numerous roles, and within the same game we can spot Alexander-Arnold as a No 6, a No 8, a No 10, or a right-back, flitting between various jobs on the right half of the pitch.

You can’t do that without intelligence, positional awareness and an ability to dictate the tempo; three attributes of an excellent defender.

Defensive numbers dispel the myth of bad defending

It’s true that Alexander-Arnold has been caught out a few times, but his supposed defensive frailties have been enormously overstated by pundits stuck in confirmation bias: whenever he makes a mistake, as all players do, a spotlight is shone on Alexander-Arnold that other defenders manage to avoid.

Don’t believe us? Then take a look at the data. Since his debut, Alexander-Arnold is in the top five for clean sheets, tackles and possessions won.

Alexander-Arnold's all-time defensive stats

*Rank among defenders since making his debut

He is also sixth for interceptions (307) and highly likely to get the three more required to enter the top five, plus he has the 11th-best record for minutes per goal conceded, at 92.

To rank 11th for that statistic highlights the paradox implicit in any negative spin on his defending: if Alexander-Arnold isn’t good enough at the back, then how come he plays for a team that’s won two Premier League titles with a mean defensive record?

Liverpool conceded just 22 goals in the 2018/19 Premier League season when they finished second, a mere seven short of the all-time record set by Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea in 2004/05. Alexander-Arnold played in 29 of those matches.

He also featured heavily in the seasons when Liverpool conceded only 26 goals (2021/22) and 33 goals (2019/20). A flawed right-back could not have done that.

Praise from fellow right-backs suggests Trent is one of the best we’ve ever seen

In 2018/19, Alexander-Arnold played a starring role in the club’s glorious Champions League run.

The following season, he was a key player as Liverpool ended their 30-year wait to be champions, finishing with 99 points, and he has since helped them to win a second Premier League title.

There are right-backs who have won more, both in England (Gary Neville won eight league titles and two Champions Leagues) and for Liverpool (Phil Neal won the league eight times in the 1970s and 1980s and won the European Cup on four occasions).

But nobody has stood out like Alexander-Arnold; nobody has garnered so much attention for their charismatic, idiosyncratic and uncategorisable take on the job.

"If there was one player where I look at and I think, 'he's very similar in the way he delivers the ball, he's very similar in the way he crosses the ball or passes', it has to be Trent," said Beckham, on the Rio Ferdinand Presents podcast in October 2024.

"In all honesty, I think he's an unbelievable [player] - his vision, he's unbelievable."

That’s high praise, but in the endless debate about whether Alexander-Arnold is really a full-back, or whether he is good enough to be considered among the best in that position, we should ask some of the greatest right-backs the world has ever seen.

Their conclusions are emphatic.

Dani Alves, speaking to FourFourTwo in 2022: "I admire Trent Alexander-Arnold very much. He's a fantastic footballer – this guy has got world-class skills."

Neville, on his own podcast, said in December last year: "We’ve never seen passing and crossing from a right-back of that type ever, and I think I can include all the great right-backs globally, not just those who played in the Premier League."

And finally, Cafu, arguably the greatest right-back of all time, speaking to BBC Sport in 2022: "His progress over the last few years has been amazing and for sure is one of the best right-backs in the world."

Alexander-Arnold has been misunderstood a little, but it won’t be long before history fades out the perceived downsides of his game.

Cafu knows all about that.

"They said the same thing about me," Cafu said just last month, speaking at the Laureus World Sports Awards in Madrid.

"They said I didn’t know how to defend. It’s not true. It is just [Alexander-Arnold’s] type of play. He is an incredible player."

That, frankly, should settle it.

Alexander-Arnold has been a transformative, shape-shifting, one-of-a-kind player. He leaves Liverpool as the greatest right-back the Premier League has ever seen.