Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has confirmed he took off Trent Alexander-Arnold at half-time of Saturday’s 3-1 win against Burnley as he had picked up an injury.
Alexander-Arnold completed the first 45 minutes of the Reds’ encounter with the Clarets and set up Diogo Jota’s opener – his 58th Premier League assist, a new record for a defender. But fans at Anfield were surprised when he did not emerge for the second half, with Harvey Elliott replacing him.
Speaking to Sky Sports post-match, Klopp revealed Alexander-Arnold felt pain in the knee he sustained ligament damage to last month.
“Same area in the knee. Nothing really bad, but he felt it again and we have to see, we have to assess it,” Klopp said of Alexander-Arnold’s injury.
“Trent said it’s fine, but it’s not fine [because] he feels it so we had to be careful and took him off.”
When asked again about Alexander-Arnold’s problem at his post-match press conference, Klopp added: “He got it stuck in the grass and we will see. We have [to send for] assessment. At half-time we had to take Trent off and that’s a double problem if you want. One is that Trent is off and the other is we had no other right-backs available.”
In Alexander-Arnold’s place, midfielder Curtis Jones was tasked with filling in at right-back, and Klopp was full of praise for the 23-year-old.
“We told Curtis what he had to do, so we changed formation slightly and tried to make it as simple as possible for him, because it was first time in the life he has played the position [in the Premier League,” Klopp added. “We didn’t want him to be the inverted right-back and have to think about these things as well. So he did exceptionally well.”
