Liverpool depended significantly on their full-backs for creativity throughout the previous five seasons, and they created goals at about the same rates from both flanks. Trent Alexander-Arnold racked up 60 assists between 2017–18 and 202–22, while Andy Robertson contributed just eight fewer.
However, there hasn’t been a competition between the two this season. In Liverpool’s disheartening 3-1 loss at Brentford, Alexander-Arnold finally picked up his first assist of the year, while his Scottish opponent now has eight, at least two more than any other player on the team.
Such things are somewhat random though, in that assists rely upon the player taking the shot converting the opportunity. Robertson has seen four of the seven clear-cut chances he has created become goals where Trent had none from eight before Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain headed in against the Bees.
Optajoe disclosed just before Christmas that the Liverpool full-backs’ value goes beyond their ability to score goals on their own. They revealed a list of the top five players throughout the previous five Premier League seasons in terms of secondary assists.
These are the passes that are made to the player who immediately receives an actual assist. Alexander-Arnold and Robertson both had 21, but Alexander-Arnold will have tied the score as a result of helping the former set up the opening goal at Aston Villa.
21 – The five players with the most passes leading to an assist over the last five Premier League seasons (secondary assist):
21 – Andrew Robertson
20 – Trent Alexander-Arnold
20 – Kevin De Bruyne
19 – Pierre-Emile Højbjerg
18 – Bruno FernandesForesight. #AskOptaJoe https://t.co/EZu5OC6fsi
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) December 22, 2022
Add in the goals that they have directly assisted as well as scored and both players have directly contributed to over 70 league goals in less than four-and-a-half seasons. There will be plenty of traditional attackers who won’t have got close to those numbers.
If pushed to choose, there’s little doubt the majority of Liverpool supporters would say Alexander-Arnold is the more talented of the two. While that might be the case, he has also had a more settled situation, which will have given him a greater chance of performing well.
Jordan Henderson regularly started at right midfield as the homegrown talent made himself a name for himself with the Reds’ first squad, and Mohamed Salah frequently started as the forward on the same flank. That has not changed much more than five years later, especially in the case of the Egyptian.
Robertson has not exactly been lucky. He was able to form triangles with Sadio Mane and Gini Wijnaldum during his first four seasons, and the trio linked up excellently as Liverpool won all kinds of championships in 2019 and 2020. However, the midfielder left the team once his contract expired at the end of 2020–21, and Mane followed him out of the organization a year later.
Robertson deserves praise for continuing to contribute to almost as many goals as Alexander-Arnold, especially in light of the changes to Liverpool’s offense over the past year. In addition to four assists for Diogo Jota over the course of the previous two seasons, the Reds’ number 26 has already provided goals for Luis Diaz, Roberto Firmino, Darwin Nunez, and Mohamed Salah this season.
Robertson is also the only player on Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool team to have helped all eight players score at least 20 goals without using a penalty. The left-back now has a new teammate with whom he needs to integrate in order to assist the squad go forward, since the team is trying to maintain consistency and Nunez is now on a brief scoring drought.
Cody Gakpo might find Kostas Tsimikas behind him on the team’s left side if he makes his FA Cup debut this weekend against Wolves. Regardless, he will spend a lot of time with Robertson, and they might link up like the Netherlands international occasionally did at PSV Eindhoven with left-back Philipp Max.
In an August 7-1 victory over FC Volendam, he gave Gakpo an assist for one of his three goals. Three weeks later, in a 4-3 victory over Feyenoord, Max gave the Liverpool newcomer the pre-assist necessary to set up Jarrad Branthwaite for the game’s first goal. If Gakpo can quickly establish a similar rapport with Robertson, as the Scot’s past indicates he can, then that can only be a good thing.
If Gakpo can swiftly strike up a similar relationship with Robertson, and the Scot’s history suggests he can, then it can only be good news for the Reds over the remainder of 2022/23 and beyond.