Trent Alexander-Arnold was to blame for Bournemouth opening the scoring against Liverpool today.
The Reds couldn’t have wished for a worse start this afternoon at Anfield. With barely two minutes on the clock, the Cherries had had the ball in Alisson’s net twice.
Thankfully, one of those didn’t count. Unfortunately for Liverpool, one of them did. And describing the goal for Sky Sports Premier League, pundit Paul Merson laid the blame at Alexander-Arnold’s feet.
“They’ve gone after Liverpool, completely gone after them, gone to close down from the front,” Merson explained. “They give away the ball cheaply, it falls to Solanke, he has a shot, it gets blocked, comes out to Semenyo and he drills it into the far corner. Alisson doesn’t move, it’s a great finish.
“But they lose the ball in midfield. Trent Alexander [Arnold], you know when he comes into the midfield, bad touch, he loses it to Billing. Solanke, good defending Robertson but what a finish. What a start. They’ve really gone after Liverpool here.”
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Liverpool start terribly
After a tricky start to the season last weekend at Chelsea, today at Anfield represented a real chance for Liverpool.
Bournemouth are a good side with a good manager, but the Reds were heavy favourites.
As things have played out early on in the game though, you’d never know it. Liverpool have been absolutely terrible.
First, a shocking mix up between Trent, Ibrahima Konate and Alisson allowed Jaidon Anthony to poke home inside a minute.
The offside flag saved them on that occasion, but Liverpool simply didn’t learn. Barely a minute later and they’d given it away again. 1-0.
After being punished, Alisson then compounded things by picking up a quite unbelievable booking for a foul outside the box.
From there on in, Liverpool didn’t wobble quite as much. But there was still enough to be worried about. Thank goodness for Luis Diaz, eh.