Trent Alexander-Arnold gave a perfect example of why he was wearing the captain’s armband for Liverpool last night.
With Virgil van Dijk rested, Alexander-Arnold once again stepped in to lead the Reds out in the Europa League, this time against Toulouse. It was a fine night for Liverpool, the 5-1 win coming with a whole host of positives.
One of those positives – and a big one at that – was the performance of Darwin Nunez. The Uruguayan was menacing throughout, bagging a lovely goal and displaying all of the qualities that have made the Anfield crowd fall in love with him.
Unfortunately for Darwin though, it wasn’t all completely positive. Having done brilliantly to round the Toulouse defence and the goalkeeper, the 24-year-old fired into the post when faced with an open net.
Trent shows his leadership
It was an awful miss, although Ryan Gravenberch made sure it didn’t matter too much, picking up the loose ball and firing home the rebound. And after the goal, Twitter user Paul Machin spotted something brilliant in the celebrations.
With most of the side off congratulating Gravenberch, Trent heads straight to Nunez. The vice-captain walks arm in arm across the goalmouth with his teammate, no doubt offering some welcome words of support.
Job doe by the skipper, Nunez is then warmly greeted by the rest of the squad, who quite clearly adore him.
A special mention goes to Curtis Jones, who wanders back for the restart with Darwin, having a smile and a joke with him on the way.
No hard feelings for Nunez
The miss Nunez posted up last night would be enough to ruin the confidence of plenty of strikers. It really was a sitter.
But in the case of Liverpool’s No.9, you really don’t feel as though it will bother him all that much.
Part of that is because of Darwin’s own attitude. He doesn’t seem to let failure linger in his mind and will get straight back out and give it his all.
But you’d imagine that his teammate’s handling of the situation will make it meaningless, too. It helps of course that Liverpool scored anyway, but you can really see the appreciation for what Nunez does from his colleagues. Last night Trent led that brilliantly.
He’ll be back, and with the support of his teammates he’s going to be a monster.
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