Trent Alexander-Arnold has been dropped to the bench by Liverpool boss Arne Slot for Wednesday's Carabao Cup clash with Tottenham.
Alexander-Arnold endured an awful evening against Manchester United on Sunday as the Reds were held to a 2-2 draw. Wednesday's game offers the chance for them to return to winning ways and press on in the search for a first piece of silverware under Slot.
The right-back failed to deliver an accurate cross from six attempts, failed to win a single tackle and did not win any of his five defensive duels. He has been the subject of heavy interest from Real Madrid, with Liverpool turning down a £20million bid on New Year's Day.
Rising star Conor Bradley will start in Alexander-Arnold's place in what is a strong Liverpool line up. The only other changes to the Reds' team sees Kostas Tsimikas replace Andy Robertson at left-back, Jarrell Quansah take Ibrahima Konate's spot at centre-back and Diogo Jota start up front in place of Luis Diaz.
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Quansah will partner Virgil van Dijk, with Alisson starting in goal. Alexis Mac Allister, Ryan Gravenberch and Curtis Jones form the midfield. Up top, Jota will be joined by Mohamed Salah on the right wing and Cody Gakpo on the left.
Despite his struggles, Slot had insisted in the lead up to Wednesday's trip to Spurs that he still had full confidence in Alexander-Arnold. He said: "I think we were all disappointed – not only Trent, we were all disappointed – by the way we played. First of all, about the result.
"Parts of the game we could be quite satisfied with, other parts of our game we weren't completely happy with. That was not only Trent, there were more things in the game that we could have done better.
"Trent didn't play his best game, I've said it already, but that's not for the first time in his life he didn't play the best game of his career. He has played so, so, so many games well for this club. Now it wasn't his best – like for some others, it wasn't the best game for some others as well."
Slot was adamant that Alexander-Arnold would be able to quickly regain his form. He added: "We just pick it up and start training again, because these players know if you play 50, 60 games in a season, once in a while you don't have your best performance.
"Maybe we should highlight more how good it is that these players are able to play every three days such a good game. And apart from the game maybe not being the best, it was again an eventful game from Liverpool.
"We would have loved to win that game so then every player wants to play two days later again. But every player that was not on the pitch would love to play tomorrow as well. That's the good thing – they all want to play. Almost all of them are fit, that is quite special in this part of the season as well.
"And I would highlight more on the fact that these players show up every three days, because they did show up also against United. If I am correct, United's manager said it was one of the best games they've played until now.
"If that means that if they play so well, we can still come up with a 2-2 and have more chances than them, then we're not in such a bad place as maybe all the people will tell us we are. So, we just analyse it as we always do and prepare ourselves for the next one."
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