Jurgen Klopp has praised Trent Alexander-Arnold for having “all the good things” as the Liverpool right-back prepares to make his 99th first-team appearance for his boyhood club.
Alexander-Arnold will be just one game away from 100 Liverpool outings if he features in Sunday’s meeting with Tottenham.
The 21-year-old has played more matches than Steven Gerrard or Jamie Carragher at the same age, and Klopp believes it is important to have a local lad like Alexander-Arnold in the side.
“Trent has a mix of personal education, football education, character, skills, attitude, mentality, and he is on top of all that”, he said.
“He is absolutely a scouser in the best understanding. It’s a big task and a big job to be a scouser as a Liverpool player because you are responsible for pretty much everything. So he has all the good things.
“On the outside, when you are a scouser in the Liverpool team it makes the game away at Manchester United even more difficult because everyone is talking to you the whole week about that and we will see the same again next year away.
“Apart from that he is so impressive. When I first saw him, I saw that this is something special but he had to work hard to make that really obvious. It’s really a pleasure to work with him to be honest. He is very aggressive in a positive way.”
Liverpool have not lost in 44 Premier League games at Anfield and will be looking to maintain their unbeaten start to the season against Spurs on Sunday.
However, Klopp acknowledged that his players lost their belief in last weekend’s 1-1 draw with Manchester United and has called on his team to not take anything for granted.
“If you win the gold medal at the Olympic Games you don’t win the gold medal again next time because you won it last time. You win it because you ran quicker than the others again. That is exactly how sports work.
“The only thing we have to respect and use is the good things we do in home games. We do not do it only in home games, but have this run because we put in a specific mix of attitude and the potential of the boys, plus the crowd. That can make life difficult.
“We saw that in Manchester last week. The Manchester crowd was really good until we scored the equaliser and then it was [clicks finger] done.
“That is something that is different here. OK, somebody can score an equaliser but it does not mean we cannot win the game any more. These are the things we have to keep. We all worked for it and deserve it and earned it together but cannot take it for granted. Against Tottenham especially.”
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