Didi Hamann came to the defence of maligned star Trent Alexander-Arnold, branding recent criticism of the fullback as “ridiculous”, as reported by Stadium Astro.
The right-back has come under fire of late for his perceived sub-par performances this term, with his crossing highlighted as a concern.
“If you play weekly or every third day, the standard he set has been exceptional. He has been flawless for two years and played over 100 games. I find the criticism of him ridiculous,” the ex-Red said. “To criticise a player who is still very young because he has had some half-baked appearances and not done any assists in a few months is ridiculous.”
At the age of 22, there’s a remarkable amount of pressure riding on the Englishman’s shoulders; partly due to the fact of his immense importance to Jurgen Klopp’s style of play, which is reliant to an extent on his fullbacks.
While the No.66, as far as stats go, is underperforming compared to the ludicrous highs of the prior term, we do have to question the amount of critique being thrown his way.
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As far as crossing goes, the Academy graduate’s numbers have hardly dropped as catastrophically as some might expect, which suggests that the blame should be shared rather than aimed at Alexander-Arnold.
It’s worth also considering the potential impact of COVID-19 on performance, with the Scouser having contracted the virus last year.
We realise we’re offering a lot of excuses at the moment, but these are all worth considering before we continue to heap the pressure on the England international.
You can watch the clip below, courtesy of Stadium Astro:
No one wants to throw TAA under the bus! But to deny that at this moment he is not the same player as last year is crazy.. he has several defensive lapses per game, his crosses in the box are mostly wasted and above all his decision making is poor. Not fo mention that of late he seems entitled to take most free kicks too! Why? How many goals has he scored from such positions? To me this is a clear sign of burn out which makes sense as for a young lad he has played way too much over the last 3 years.. way too much. And this is management’s fault not his. We don’t have a solid back up to allow him proper breaks to recover and stay hungry. It’s on Klopp and FSG as they play it all on a shoestring budget. Take a look at ManU and City and even Chelsea squads and you will see always two relatively equal quality players in all positions. Not at Pool. On almost any position our quality/ experience drops off significantly from starters to reserve..
With the exception of Jota who can sub for either winger w/o problems and maybe 1-2 midfielders we are a lesser team as soon as we go to bench… Alisson has a kid as back up.. Firmino has no one to push him out, right back, left back are not even in the same league quality wise.. VVD out and we are a completely different team defensively.. on and on..
This is the real problem. No one blames TAA per say.. it’s inevitable what is going with him.. same applies to Salah, Firmino… they all need more rotation to stay fit and hungry and mentally engaged..