Palace man perfect for Liverpool, Georgia transfer opportunity

In his exclusive column for CaughtOffside, former Aston Villa attacker Stan Collymore discusses some of football’s biggest talking points, including why it’s time to stop criticising Trent Alexander-Arnold in midfield, why Michael Olise makes perfect sense for Liverpool, why Premier League clubs need to look at Georgia for transfers and much more.

Let Trent Alexander-Arnold get on with it in midfield

We either all shut up and let him, Gareth Southgate, and perhaps Arne Slot, play in that position. The only way to learn how to play in that position is to play it! Or we say we’ll give him two games and, unless he’s bloody Michel Platini, Steven Gerrard and Paul Scholes rolled into one, in 90 minutes we’ll get rid of the experiment.

For me, if you’re going to convert a player from a right fullback into a central midfielder, that’s fine. But now you have to play him in the amount of games that allows him to learn the role. In other words, learning as you go! There was a big clamour for Trent to sit in front of the back four; his passing is great, his free-kicks are great… but to walk into an international tournament, or even the Premier League, and convert on day one isn’t going to happen. So we need to be patient with him.

It’s kind of the same really when Phil Foden played the last friendly against Iceland; he played as a No.10 and didn’t play well. I remember writing a few months back that you either have to give someone the whole tournament in that position or don’t play them at all. Because really, what you’re saying is, ‘We believe Trent can play in midfield, so we’ve got to play him there’. But the problem is he didn’t grow up as a midfielder, so it’s a different role he’s learning. I think he’ll play tonight. If he plays anything above a five or a six out of 10 – he keeps his place! Unless he backpasses in the 90th minute and that guy goes around the ‘keeper and scores and all of a sudden we’re in trouble – even then Gareth Southgate has decided to pick Trent as a midfielder, so you’ve got to continue with it. It’s that simple for me.

People can be as critical as they like and you can be critical and say he didn’t have a great game. I don’t think he did have a great game, I think that sometimes his passing was a little bit off, but I can expand my mind enough to say that the benefits we’re going to…