The Mystery of Trent Alexander-Arnold in 2024/25

The current focus on Trent Alexander-Arnold is understandably on his contract situation. But he is producing strange stats for Liverpool in the Premier League.

What do your stats say about Trent's performance this season? Personally I find it a bit underwhelming until now.

The best aspect of having your own newsletter is the ability to write about whatever you want. The above question was posted as a comment on the Stat of the Match article on Liverpool’s 1-0 win over Crystal Palace. My initial instinct was to agree with the sentiment, until I looked at Trent Alexander-Arnold’s numbers. They are worthy of a deep dig, so here we are.

The right-back’s performance at Selhurst Park was symptomatic of his campaign to date. Alexander-Arnold completed 70.7 per cent of his passes, in line with his season-wide Premier League average of 71. In only 2019/20 was it lower. He has played at least 71 minutes while completing no more than 56 passes in all seven league games this season; he did that nine times in total in each of the last three campaigns, seven in the one prior to that.

Trent completed 53 passes against the Eagles, which is above his rate per 90 minutes for 2024/25 (48.2) but well below his mid-60s average from each of the last five seasons. While the proportion of passes which Alexander-Arnold makes which are classed as short, medium or long is in line with years past, his completion rate for the latter two has never been lower.

His rate of being tackled (excluding take-on attempts) has almost tripled. The proportion of passes into the final third or penalty area has not been lower since he was a teenager. He’s completing the fewest progressive passes per 90 of his twenties too.

With Alexander-Arnold, his sublime passing ability is everything. Yet Arne Slot’s iteration of Liverpool are making far less use of this skill than Jürgen Klopp’s Reds ever did.

This feels, at least numerically, similar to how Diogo Jota is having far fewer touches than ever before. It has to be deliberate. Like the Portuguese forward, who is making goal contributions in 2024/25 at a rate above his Liverpool career average, Alexander-Arnold’s decreasing pass numbers have not yet impacted his creative output. There is, however, one simple statistic which explains perfectly why Slot would want his best passer on the ball less often.