Trent Alexander-Arnold Says Liverpool Played Into West Ham’s Hands

Heading into Sunday’s league match with West Ham, Liverpool had been unbeaten for 25 games. It was a stretch, a streak, that couldn’t last forever, but that doesn’t make the way it ended especially easy to take.

“We’re disappointed in ourselves,” said Trent Alexander-Arnold. “We came here with a game plan [but] we never executed it. We played into their hands, especially in the second half, and got sucked into their game.”

West Ham sought to slow the game down when Liverpool had the ball, and on a frustrating afternoon it can be said the Reds too often failed to find a way to make their London hosts especially uncomfortable.

Still, on paper it always looked to be a tough test. With the season a quarter of the way through, West Ham appeared convincingly one of the league’s four best sides, and the game was at their stadium.

Today, after beating Liverpool, the Hammers can make a case that they should be counted as one of the favourites to finish in the top four. Liverpool, though, know their failure to execute helped their opponents.

“We allowed them set-pieces, counter-attacks, exactly what they want to do,” Alexander-Arnold added. “They defended really well. We struggled to break them down and didn’t create too many chances.

“It was a bit slow, a bit lethargic from us. We played some decent football in the first half but coming out in the second half we never played the way we needed—we never did what we needed to do to win the game.”