Look at today for example. Yes Doku completed some dribbles, but most times Trent funneled him to the byline or inside and Doku wasn’t really threatening for the most part. Yet the prevailing narrative is that he got destroyed by Doku.
He has actually been decent to good at defending this season yet people say he’s been a horrific defender. I don’t think this is quite true if you watch him play.
I won’t claim that he’s an amazing defender but he’s not a bad one either, he’s just a perfectly average to good defender but the narrative is that he’s a liability. It’s frustrating to see.
Liverpool vs PSG when he’s like 20 up against prime Neymar - clean sheet. Liverpool play a high line an Salah doesn’t come back to help too much. The style of play means he’s going to be exposed a lot. It’s so ridiculously over the top
It started from Neville’s position as best prem RB coming under threat. He pushed the focus on his defending relentlessly after they won the European cup. Before that it was all praise strangely
No. He gets cooked regularly. He spams more balls than anyone in. Throw enough crosses in box one will go in
He is a very good defender. Not world class but better than most in the league. He just gets caught out with long balls and misjudges where it’s going. The CL final of 2022, Vinicius jnr, was going to roast him all game… but he won most of the battles.
I think Trent’s defending gets brought up a lot because he’s so often in conversations of being one of the best full backs in the world and it is logical to therefore bring up the fact that he is an average defender. It’s probably a bit overblown and I think in the past systems have not aided him, but there’s a lot of examples of him being a middling 1 on 1 defender, and also a number of examples of him losing his man or ball watching.
Imo his skill set is not really about being a good defender but when you’re arguing about him vs Walker or Reece James for an england team for example it’s clear he’s a less multifaceted player than them and that’s to do with him defending at a much lower level.
Yeah trent has always been a perfectly fine defender. He’s an absolutely world class player with the ball though
I mean no, he has been below average as a poor defender
There isn’t a single thing to back this claim up. Find all right backs in the top 50 teams in the world and show me how trenr is below average.
Do you have any metrics whatsoever to support this?
He’s not as good as you’d expect for a “world class” right back, but he’s not below average for a typical prem defender
This is eloquently put
he’s just average in terms of 1v1 defending but if you mean defensive awareness then yeah he’s below average
If you understood anything about football. Trent loves to move up the pitch I’m which leaves a gap behind him and that’s what gets exploited every time.
I mean I don’t think anyone has ever said TAA is better then Walker or James, just that he is so much better at attacking then either and that is an area Engalnd need help in.
Trent has shut down some of the best wingers in the world before and been apart of some of the best defenses in the world. His lack of defensive ability is definitely overblown.
Trent is 100% better than James. Walker though is a much better defender and I think an overall player. However Walker does also have the benefit of playing for a team that always has possession but still a fine defender.
Trent never had a problem with defending per se.
His problem has usually been concentration levels and switching off while defending.
When Doku is running at him, Trent is pretty good. But when the ball is cleared and Ake is moving forward, he switched off.
No, his crossing was shocking again today
He’s not a good defender. His positional and awareness of what’s going on around him is not good. Which I don’t understand because his attacking awareness is good. He’s not a terrible defender by any means. But you have to ask; if it wasn’t for his attacking prowess, would he still be in the team. I suspect not.
I assume last season you lived under a Rock all year n never saw him defend , he’s not a defender
I feel like his goal, while crucial, kind of hides his defensive performance today which, while not disastrous, was once again not up to par for one of the best teams in the world. He got cooked by doku multiple times, and was fortunate that his teammates followed up well and it never resulted in a goal. Him and szoboszlai are also very lax on letting ake through to assist haaland. He may be improving, but his defending is still poor for a player of his caliber
Trent completely shut down Doku, what are you on about? City’s goal was the direct product of Allison slipping and catching his entire team out of position.
Are you high? Doku got a ball into a dangerous area on almost every single take on…
He didn’t though. Doku got loads of crosses in and got past him plenty of times. Liverpool just for the most part managed to defend the crosses
https://twitter.com/Hennes_4/status/1728541660194156883?t=Y5Lp1L0OXMY2AJsbu51VsQ&s=19
Doku barely got two crosses in and only one was close to anything dangerous.
He got shut down and had to cut back inside almost all the other times
Its kind of weird because he usually performs well in defense when put in a spotlight having a guy like Doku in front of him. His actual problem in defense is his positioning during counter-attacks when he often forgets what he needs to do or falls asleep putting himself in bad positions.
It’s not that he’s a bad defender when he’s bothered to make an effort defending. He’s actually pretty decent as evidenced by his matchup with Doku today.
It’s that he loses concentration/half asses a tackle a bit too much in high profile situations (see how Ake just gets past him like a traffic cone for Haaland’s goal) so it’s easy to criticize - but you’d argue he shouldn’t be switching off so much at this level.
No #LFC player won possession more (10), contested more duels (15), or played more passes into the final 1/3 (8) than Alexander-Arnold today.
He’s the first LFC player to score & record as many as he did in all those metrics in a PL game since Steven Gerrard v Fulham in Nov '07. 14:34 • 25/11/2023
(Copied from Michael Reid twitter @michael_reid11)
totally overblown. from both sides though
he’s not a great defender yet people claim he is. he’s also not awful, apart from parts of last season. he did well today, and overall was solid defensively this season
but then again, he’s not playing because of his defensive capabilities
Always been the way.
But apparently Reece James is amazing despite rarely playing and being average when he does.