Despite being named Man of the Match for the third time in his last four games for England, Trent Alexander-Arnold‘s defending was the focus for Roy Keane.
Alexander-Arnold has been Man of the Match in every game it has been decided for under England’s interim head coach Lee Carsley, with none awarded during the 2-1 loss to Greece.
Sunday night saw him mark another impressive display with a stunning free-kick on the way to a 3-1 victory over Finland in the UEFA Nations League.
He did so having been deployed in an unnatural role as inverted left-back, which paid off for Carsley as Alexander-Arnold was able to dictate play from deep.
In his post-match analysis for ITV Sport, however, ex-Man United midfielder Keane opted to focus on the tiresome cliche that the Liverpool right-back cannot defend.
"That's what he is capable of doing" ?
1st for touches, passes, shots & crosses – Trent Alexander-Arnold put in another tidy performance for England ?#ITVFootball | #FINENG | @IanWright0 pic.twitter.com/nSj7RHtaea
— ITV Football (@itvfootball) October 13, 2024
“When you give time to Trent, his decision-making, his quality of passing, is fantastic,” he explained.
“But honestly, I still can’t believe how bad he is defensively, and against better teams of course he’ll be found out.”
This came after a joke from Keane before kickoff when put to him that Alexander-Arnold had never played left-back before in his career.
He replied: “If you saw him the other night defending, it looked like he’d never played right-back before!”
It is a ridiculously over-egged how Alexander-Arnold is seen as a liability in defence, regardless of whether his primary duty is further forward.
Even in a more orthodox role under new Liverpool head coach Arne Slot, there is an accepted trade-off in that, if the No. 66 is relied upon as the main creative outlet, he cannot always be involved in defence.
“I don’t there’s much he did defensively that you can look at and say ‘yeah, that’s the position he’s probably going to play very often’,” Ian Wright, sat alongside Keane in the ITV studio, added.
“But from a creative point of view, you can see that Lee Carsley wants as many creative players in the deep end of his football team [as possible] to create.
“Trent’s one of those that he believes [can do that].
“Yeah, he played him on the left, I can’t see it being something will happen too frequently, but at the same time, offensively, his passes, it was his pass that led to Angel Gomes doing his bit of quality [to assist Jack Grealish].”
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