Liverpool would be BOTTOM of Premier League table for English stars’ playing time without Trent Alexander-Arnold
LIVERPOOL are the champions-elect of England — yet have never given less playing time to English players.
And now homegrown hero Trent Alexander-Arnold looks set to leave Anfield for Real Madrid on a free transfer this summer.
Which means the Reds could find themselves bottom of the table next season when it comes to footballers qualified to play for Three Lions boss Thomas Tuchel.
In Kop chief Arne Slot’s debut season, Liverpool’s English contingent have racked up the second-highest total of minutes in all competitions — behind his fellow Dutchmen Virgil van Dijk, Cody Gakpo and Ryan Gravenberch.
But although Slot has fielded 11 different English players, Alexander-Arnold’s 2,869 minutes represents almost 35 per cent of the total.
In the Premier League, Englishmen have played 4,258 minutes for the Reds, the fifth-lowest figure in the top flight.
And Alexander-Arnold, despite his injury issues, accounts for 2,157 of them — more than half.
Take the right-back out of the team and the total falls to 2,101, only slightly more than the 2,075 that puts Wolves in 20th place.
If Alexander-Arnold does leave and his replacement is not English — current understudy Conor Bradley is a Northern Ireland international — Liverpool’s English presence could be the lowest in the Prem next season.
The Reds are set for their lowest number of English minutes in the Premier League era, unless Alexander-Arnold regains fitness fast or Curtis Jones, Jarell Quansah and Harvey Elliott can feature prominently in their nine remaining league games.
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Of course, the fact Liverpool’s five- highest totals came in the first five seasons of the revamped competition demonstrates a wider trend.
The situation at Anfield is one example of the challenge that Tuchel — and any England manager — has in finding English players operating at the top level.
As things stand, this season is on course to be one of the lowest overall shares of Premier League minutes for Englishmen, dipping below 30 per cent for only the second time.
If Champions League football is the gold standard of club football, then the figures do not make great reading for Tuchel — or for Liverpool’s Englishmen, either.
The club gave 1,684 minutes of action to English players in Europe’s premier competition, the lowest of the Prem’s four entrants across the same number of games — and only slightly more than Italian giants AC Milan.
And Aston Villa, who are in the quarter-finals unlike Liverpool, have given nearly twice as much time to Englishmen in their campaign so far (3,318 minutes).
Alexander-Arnold, “the Scouser in our team”, is England’s only representative in Slot’s first XI.
The Reds have always looked beyond the country’s borders for players, dating back to their foundation.
When John Houlding left Everton to set up a rival club in 1892, he drafted in a lot of Scots, leading to newly-formed Liverpool being nicknamed “Team of all the Macs”.
Current left-back Andy Robertson is just the latest legend in a proud Scottish heritage that includes Kop heroes like Billy Liddell, Bill Shankly, Ron Yeats, Ian St John, Kenny Dalglish, Alan Hansen and Graeme Souness.
When Dalglish led Liverpool to the Double in 1986 as manager, none of the starting XI in the FA Cup final against Everton were English.
However, in Liverpool’s six European Cup/Champions League wins, there were as many as nine and never fewer than two English starters.
The trophy was lifted by an English captain every time — except in 1984 when Souness did the honours.
Alexander-Arnold was the other Englishman in Jurgen Klopp’s starting XI on a Madrid night in 2019 that ended with Jordan Henderson collecting the silverware after a 2-0 win over Tottenham.
Liverpool have never started a European Cup or Champions League game without an English player.
If Alexander-Arnold leaves, that proud tradition could well end.