With Trent Alexander-Arnold announcing he will leave boyhood club Liverpool when his contract expires this summer, David Segar of Opta Analyst looks at how the Premier League champions could replace the seemingly irreplaceable right-back.
After months of speculation, the moment many Liverpool fans feared has arrived as Trent Alexander-Arnold confirmed on Monday that he is leaving the club upon the expiry of his contract in June.
While the announcement won’t come as much of a shock to the club's supporters, with reports suggesting the England international is set to join Real Madrid, there’ll no doubt be a pang of sadness as one of their own prepares to move on.
The exit of a local boy, who has been at Liverpool since the age of six and was handed the vice-captaincy last season, will leave a bad taste for some, with any frustration exacerbated by the fact he’s a world-class talent who has attributes no other player in his position in the game does.
Alexander-Arnold has 23 goals and a whopping 86 assists in 352 games for his boyhood club. He impacts games from right-back in a way no other player does, with a passing range scarcely seen before from a full-back.
How can Liverpool replace him? They arguably can’t, but we’ve looked at some possible solutions.
The internal promotion
Conor Bradley
It has been quite the season for Liverpool, but arguably the biggest roar Anfield has heard in 2024/25 didn’t even involve a goal being scored.
When Conor Bradley slid in to tackle a runaway Kylian Mbappe like a jungle cat catching its prey during Liverpool’s UEFA Champions League showdown with Real Madrid in November, the reaction from the home fans was one of pride and astonishment.
The young Northern Irishman shone all night as Liverpool ran out 2-0 winners, and it could be that Real Madrid have given Bradley another opportunity to shine if Alexander-Arnold is joining them. But wherever the departing right-back lands, his exit has created a gap in the Reds’ defence that Bradley could fill more permanently.
The 21-year-old has played 26 times (11 starts) in all competitions this season for his club, clocking up 1,196 minutes overall.
Can he really step up to be first choice at a team with the loftiest of ambitions, though?
Firstly, it’s important to note that Bradley is a very different full-back to Alexander-Arnold. As you can see from their respective heat maps below, he doesn’t have as many touches in attacking areas as Liverpool’s vice-captain, and doesn’t wander centrally as often.
How their heat maps compare
While Alexander-Arnold enjoys getting on the ball and dictating the tempo like a midfielder, Bradley likes to make off-the-ball runs.
In the Premier League this season, Alexander-Arnold has averaged 10.4 off-ball runs per 90 minutes, compared to 26.4 from Bradley, and 2.4 runs into the opposition’s box as opposed to his understudy’s 8.1.
This evidence suggests Mohamed Salah would have an option to pass to on the outside more often next season if Bradley were to take over from Alexander-Arnold.
Of course, everything depends on what Arne Slot ultimately wants from his full-backs, although having players who add to a team’s verticality does seem to be a growing trend in the Premier League.
If the manager still wants top-notch distribution and creativity from right-back, Bradley may not be the answer yet.
In all competitions this season, his chances created from open play per 90 (1.0) is lower than Alexander-Arnold’s (1.4), while he averages just 1.2 open-play crosses per 90 to Trent’s 3.4.
Defensively, they average roughly the same number of tackles per 90 (2.6) but Alexander-Arnold has the edge in possession won (5.0 to 4.7) and interceptions per 90 (1.2 to 0.8).
It’s important to remember that Bradley is still developing, though. At just 21, exposure to more regular first-team football should see him improve in all areas eventually.
Despite his tender age, Bradley has already been awarded the captaincy of his national team, and last summer Northern Ireland boss Michael O’Neill said: "We’ve got a really special young player who can only continue that way… [Bradley’s] attitude to the game is maybe his biggest attribute, he just loves to play.
"He trains that like that, he always trains at his maximum and I think at times the other younger players feed off that."
There are injury concerns. According to Transfermarkt, Bradley has sustained four separate injuries that have cumulatively caused him to be sidelined for roughly seven months in the last two years, so whether Liverpool would feel comfortable relying on him is another question entirely.
A ready-made replacement?
Jeremie Frimpong
One of the first big names to be linked with stepping into Alexander-Arnold’s boots was Bayer Leverkusen’s Jeremie Frimpong. The short-but-speedy Dutchman has been sensational for Xabi Alonso’s side in the last two seasons and is among the most productive right-backs in world football.
Well, we say "right-back".
In Alonso’s three-at-the-back system, Frimpong plays as a wing-back, which involves far more wing than back, as you can see from his heat map below.
The 24-year-old's runs down the right side open up so many opportunities for Leverkusen, and he has been a vital part of the team that sensationally won the Bundesliga and DFB-Pokal double last season, and challenged FC Bayern Munich in the league again this term before Harry Kane and co sealed the title at the weekend. In all competitions, Frimpong has 37 goal involvements across the last two seasons (18 goals, 19 assists).
However, while it might be true that Frimpong hasn’t played as a right-back under Alonso, he largely did so during his time at Celtic and at Leverkusen prior to the Spaniard’s arrival in the Bundesliga. The below heat map is from the 2021/22 season and shows that Frimpong’s touches were far more akin to an orthodox right-back in Gerardo Seoane’s system.
He recorded six assists in the Bundesliga in 2021/22, the same number as Alexander-Arnold in the Premier League this season, and averaged 1.3 open-play chances created per 90, just shy of Alexander-Arnold’s 1.4. But he did play the role very differently.
When comparing Frimpong’s 2021/22 league campaign with Alexander-Arnold’s 2024/25 efforts, we can see the Leverkusen man attempted more dribbles and had a lot more success in ground duels, but had significantly less involvement in passing and defensive actions.
Alexander-Arnold 24/25 v Frimpong 21/22
Click here to zoom in on graphic.
Frimpong is a very good player, but a very different one to Alexander-Arnold. Slot may be open to changing the setup of his team and might even prefer having a right-back like Frimpong who provides more width and dribbling threat, but changes would have to be made elsewhere to accommodate him.
There could be concerns as to how he works with Salah, for example. Though it should be remembered that Frimpong and Moussa Diaby – also a pacy left-footed winger with an eye for goal – worked very well together down Leverkusen’s right side in the 2021/22 and 2022/23 seasons. Diaby did sometimes play on the left of the attack as well, however.
Two more things working in Frimpong's favour are that he reportedly has a release clause of around £34 million, and perhaps more crucially considering Liverpool would be losing one of their academy graduates in Alexander-Arnold, Frimpong would count as a homegrown player due to his developmental years at Manchester City.
His versatility in potentially playing in the frontline could also allow him and Bradley to play together on the right side when Salah isn’t available, which would be the case in December/January when the next edition of the Africa Cup of Nations takes place.
How Alexander-Arnold compares to other full-backs
Click here to zoom in on image.
The free agent
Kyle Walker-Peters
Southampton’s Kyle Walker-Peters is out of contract this summer and may look for a move up from the Championship back to the Premier League, with Saints having been relegated.
The former Tottenham Hotspur man can cover both sides and counts as homegrown. Walker-Peters has played 27 league games this season, almost equally split between left-back and right-back, has an impressive passing accuracy of 90.5 per cent and has created 24 chances from open play. Only 12 Premier League defenders have created more.
The 'next' Alexander-Arnold?
Givairo Read
Given they struck gold when showing faith in a young Alexander-Arnold, Liverpool could look to take a bit of a risk on another young up-and-comer.
Feyenoord’s Givairo Read is already known by Slot, who gave him his debut for the Dutch side off the bench in a UEFA Europa League game against Roma last season.
Read has established himself in the first team at De Kuip this year, making 23 Eredivisie appearances (19 starts) and recording six assists; only Igor Paixao (nine) has more assists for Feyenoord in the Dutch league this season.
Givairo Read creative stats 24/25
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The pacy 18-year-old also has Champions League experience, appearing in both play-off games against Inter Milan as well as their last-16 second leg at Inter.
Martim Fernandes
Another option could be Porto’s Martim Fernandes, viewed as one of the most exciting young talents in the Primeira Liga. Reports in December suggested Liverpool were tracking Fernandes’ development as a potential option in the event Alexander-Arnold departed.
The 19-year-old, who is very comfortable on the ball and always looking to spring attacks, has five assists in the league in 2024/25, with Francisco Moura (nine) the only Porto player with more.
He has created the most big chances per 90 – a chance from which the attacking team would usually be expected to score – of any defender in Europe’s top-10 leagues this season with 0.97 (minimum 10 games played).
Martim Fernandes creative stats 24/25
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The outside shot
Trai Hume
We couldn’t resist a wild shout, but we think there’s a bit of sense to it. In Bradley, Liverpool have a Northern Ireland international who can make a big impact on the right side, so why not add another?
Sunderland’s Trai Hume has been outstanding at the Stadium of Light this season. The 23-year-old recorded six assists in the Championship regular season, with Patrick Roberts (seven) the only Black Cats player to tally more.
Hume created the most chances from open play (50) and laid on the second-most big chances (13) by a defender in the Championship in 2024/25.
In fact, even including midfielders and forwards, only 10 players in the second tier laid on more open-play chances to team-mates, and just eight crafted more big chances.
Trai Hume creative stats 24/25
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No defender was dribbled past more times than Hume (50) in the Championship this season, though in fairness if you look at it on a per-90 basis (minimum 10 matches played), he drops to 10th in that list (1.18).
Hume also made more tackles than any other defender in the competition (119), only 11 defenders won possession more often (173) and he ranks 14th for interceptions (45). He made 152 tackles in 2023/24 as well, at least 33 more than anyone else in the Championship.
He also played in all but two of Sunderland’s regular-season league games this season, having featured in all 46 games last term, showing he can stay fit too.
Whether he’d fancy competing with Bradley at both club and international level is debatable – albeit O’Neill has previously remedied that by playing the Liverpool full-back further up the pitch – but Hume seems like someone who will likely be playing in the Premier League sooner rather than later.
How do you replace a "unicorn"? It looks like Liverpool will have to figure it out, but whatever they decide, it seems certain the Reds will look considerably different next season.
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