Ryan Sessegnon has claimed that he targeted the space that Trent Alexander-Arnold leaves open during Liverpool’s draw with Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday.
Speaking to Stadium Astro after the game, Sessegnon said he had hoped to get some joy down Trent’s side of the pitch.
“We know from one side of the pitch they close a lot, so the space is on the other side for me,” said the Spurs full-back.
“When the ball gets switched over Trent leaves a lot of space on the wide areas and that’s what I tried to do, tried to attack him, tired to get crosses in and thankfully (that’s what happened) for the assist and we scored.”
Evidence that opposition teams are actively targeting the space left in-behind from Trent’s marauding runs forward. As with the high defensive line that Jurgen Klopp loves to play though, the rewards of Alexander-Arnold’s game far outweigh the risks.
Trent, Konate and an audition for Paris
It was an impressively executed counter-attack for Son Heung-Min to give Spurs the lead at Anfield. Liverpool were caught up the pitch with their defensive shape all over the place.
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It would be churlish to pin the fault of the goal on Trent – none of the Liverpool back seven covered themselves in glory. The truth remains that the goal did come from the space he vacated though.
As Tottenham punished one of Liverpool’s ill-fated forays up the pitch, Real Madrid might try to do the same in the Champions League final.
We wrote here about how Klopp may think about playing Ibrahima Konate over Joel Matip to try to deal with the pace of Vinicius Junior in that game.
However, Konate was on the pitch on Saturday to try to do a similar job with Son. It could be argued that it largely worked – Son was generally kept quiet. The South Korean did still manage to have a defining impact on the game though, and it came down Trent and Konate’s side to boot.
Saturday’s game is unlikely to change Klopp’s thinking too much. Although Trent had an off game in an attacking sense on Saturday night, he will still be one of The Reds key men in Paris.
The Konate/Matip debate could have been put to bed here. It wasn’t quite an emphatic answer from Konate though. It will be interesting to see if this game does have an impact on which way Klopp is leaning for the two finals coming up.