Paul Merson says Liverpool have a ‘mind-blowing’ player in their ranks who ‘keeps on going’

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Liverpool right-back Trent Alexander-Arnold has been praised by Sky Sports pundit Paul Merson for the way he “never hides” following poor displays.

The 22-year-old is one of the Anfield academy’s greatest success stories in recent years, breaking into the first team and becoming arguably the best right-back in world football.

Since making his debut in 2016, Alexander-Arnold has clocked up 171 senior competitive appearances for Liverpool, registering 10 goals and 41 assists.

The England international had an off day against Real Madrid last week, but delivered a much-improved performance against Aston Villa at the weekend.

Aside from looking better defensively, he was also a big threat in attack, and capped it off by scoring a superb injury-time winner at Anfield.

“Fair play to Trent Alexander-Arnold the other day,” Merson wrote on Sky Sports.

“He gets a lot of stick about his positional play, but he is a victim of his own success because he has been so good that when he has a couple of bad games, everybody says, ‘oh my god…’

“But what I like about him is he keeps on going and going, he never hides, goes to Arsenal and puts in one of the balls of the season, it was mind-blowing, like David Beckham.

“And then he scores the winner against Villa when he could easily have said, ‘I’ll sit on the halfway line, I do not need this coming to me with all the stick I’m getting.’

“But he does not and fair play, I like that and have a lot of respect for him doing that as it is very easy to hang out and say, ‘I do not want to do this, what happens if I balloon a ball into the stands…?'”

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Merson is spot on here – Alexander-Arnold has set the bar so high for himself with his amazing performances that, when an off day comes – and all players experience this – it stands out more.

But against Villa, he was back to his best – hopefully he’ll maintain momentum going into the Champions League quarter-final second leg.