Steven Gerrard has warned that Liverpool\u2019s attacking patterns have suffered in the absence of Trent Alexander-Arnold, arguing the right back\u2019s creativity has been a defining feature of how the team operated. Gerrard, who once turned down a move to the Santiago Bernab\u00e9u during his playing days, suggested that Liverpool\u2019s forward play has lost an element of surprise since Alexander-Arnold left for Madrid.<\/p>\n
The right back has endured a nightmarish start to his Madrid career, making just 11 appearances since the summer\u2019s Club World Cup after two lengthy absences. The England international is currently sidelined with a hamstring injury. Liverpool have also struggled in 2025\u201326 as they defend their Premier League title, and Gerrard believes the departure has been felt most in the attacking third.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m gutted he\u2019s left. I think we miss him,\u201d Gerrard told The Smith Brothers Podcast. \u201cI think we\u2019ve become a little bit predictable going side to side and we\u2019re not really opening teams up where it\u2019s one pass or one bit of magic and teams were petrified when he was on the ball.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo if I had it my way from a fan\u2019s point of view and also I\u2019ve said it before, I\u2019m not sure it was the right thing for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alexander-Arnold contributed 12 goal contributions for Liverpool across all competitions last season. His overall tally for the club stands at 23 goals and 92 assists from right back. His distribution from deep and his deliveries into the penalty area are cited as integral to how the Reds created chances, and Gerrard\u2019s comments underline how that specific skill set is being missed while the player is both adapting to life in Madrid and managing injury setbacks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gerrard: Liverpool more predictable without Alexander-Arnold; his passing and deliveries are missed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5545,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[230,175],"tags":[1162,299],"class_list":["post-5546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analytics-stats","category-liverpool","tag-analytics","tag-arne-slot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}