Alexander-Arnold On Salzburg: Liverpool Have A Big Game On Our Hands

It was a surprise when Trent Alexander-Arnold was dropped last night in favor of the more defensively-minded Joe Gomez. It didn’t take long before it was readily apparent that Jurgen Klopp made a mistake.

Before the match, the logic seemed understandable: give Georginio Wijnaldum and Trent—both of whom have racked up a lot of minutes for club and country this season—a rest. As the game panned out, both were called into action. And in a do-or-die match against Salzburg in two weeks, it seems likely that the manager won’t be leaving these two trusted, dynamic players on the bench again.

Instead of reflecting on what could have been against Napoli, Trent is already turning his attention to what needs to be done against Salzburg.

“We know we’re a strong side who beat them at Anfield. We need to go there and get a result – and that’s what we’re going to hope to do,” TAA told the club’s official website. “It’s something we need to be aiming for, reaching the latter stages and pushing on from there. For the club it’s massive and we know we’ve got a big game on our hands.

“Obviously we want to win as many games as possible and we weren’t able to do that.

“We’re still in a strong position in the group and we know we’ve got another game to secure our place in the latter stages. It’ll be a difficult test for us, but we’re in a solid place right now.”

Liverpool should still be more than enough against Salzburg, even on the road. However, we saw last time out just how dangerous this squad can be. Hopefully Trent and the coaching staff can learn their lessons from Napoli and the last match against Salzburg, so they can kick on with their Champions League ambitions.