Peter Crouch says he’ll ‘always remember’ what Trent Alexander-Arnold did for Liverpool during the 2018 Champions League final.
The former Reds striker was discussing the unshakeable confidence of top-level players on That Peter Crouch Podcast. To illustrate his point, Crouch brought up something he saw from Trent in Liverpool’s loss to Real Madrid in Kyiv.
“I’ll always remember Trent Alexander-Arnold’s first Champions League final,” began the 41-year-old. “I can’t remember the age he was, it was something ridiculous, and I remember the first touch he had. It was a 50, 60 yard ball over to the far side where he was and he controlled it with the outside of his boot, in the air, and he just sort of popped it up and played another diag.
“I thought ‘play your way into the game son, don’t be showboating minute one in your first ever Champions League final,’ you know. Steam into a tackle or something!”
As ever, the line is delivered the usual Crouchy chuckle. Rather than decrying Alexander-Arnold for showboating, the pundit is in amazement over how good, how composed the Liverpool youngster was.
Just nineteen at the time, Trent had no right to be so utterly relaxed. As we’ve seen many times since from Liverpool’s No.66 though, nothing really fazes him.
Time to talk about Trent
It’s nice to hear something so positive about Trent in the media for once. Usually when the talking heads get on about Trent, it’s for something negative.
Not Crouchy though, the former Liverpool striker is clearly in awe of just how good the right-back is.
And that’s the way it should be. Because for all the furore surrounding Trent’s defensive shortcomings, he really is a ridiculously talented footballer.
There aren’t many on the planet who can do what he can. We can picture the move that Crouch is talking about as if it were playing out in-front of us. Not because we remember it specifically, we don’t, but we’ve seen the same thing a thousand times.
Flawless first touch, second one pings an inexplicably good pass towards a teammate. That’s just what he does.
And maybe that’s the problem. Too many have become blasé about what we see from Alexander-Arnold. Few possess the sheer weight of talent that the 24-year-old does. With that weight comes inevitable pressure. But remarkably, Trent just doesn’t seem to feel it.
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