Speaking on his podcast, Glenn Hoddle has delivered his verdict on Trent Alexander-Arnold after he was snubbed from the latest England squad.
The right-back was dropped by Gareth Southgate after his indifferent season with Liverpool, and with just a few months to go before the Euros, he’s been left out of the latest team.
Hoddle believes that this may be the wake-up call that he needed, stating that he has taken his foot off of the gas this term
“As for Trent Alexander. I think he’s a very good player. I have seen a slight change in him this year, he’s a very young man and this might be the very thing he needs,” Hoddle said.
“I think up at Liverpool they’ve had defensive problems in that back four, he’s come in and he’s a young man and it’s a learning experience. He’ll look back at the start of this season and I saw things he was doing that were a bit too flamboyant and a little bit too relaxed and I think his mind wasn’t quite there. He’s had an indifferent season, he still hits a wonderful pass and gets forward and does some wonderful things.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if he got his head down now and says look I’ve got to get back to know how I can play and how I was playing, I think he’s just taken his foot off the pedal, and that happens with youngsters sometimes.”
As an ex-England manager, Hoddle knows what he’s talking about.
Young players can become complacent, especially after achieving so much success in the early days of their career, and that’s what Hoddle thinks has happened with Alexnader-Arnold.
It’s still easy to see just how talented the right-back is at times, but the shortcomings in his game have become a lot more apparent over the past 12 months, but with a talented manager such as Jurgen Klopp keeping an eye on him, it should be an easy problem to solve.
Fingers crossed we see the youngster back to his best sooner rather than later.
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