Trent Alexander-Arnold admits he “ran out of juice” on his first start back from injury, but when he was going, Jurgen Klopp says he was “absolutely insane.”
With Conor Bradley joining the injury list, Alexander-Arnold made his first start since February as he returned to the side for Thursday’s trip to Atalanta.
It came on a frustrating night for Liverpool as, despite winning 1-0, they exited the Europa League with a 3-1 quarter-final loss.
Alexander-Arnold lasted 72 minutes before being replaced by Joe Gomez, with his creativity from deep and out wide arguably the Reds’ biggest outlet – including winning the penalty for Mo Salah to convert.
Unfortunately, having already clocked 42 minutes against Crystal Palace four days previous, the right-back understandably “ran out of juice.”
“I think it just ran out of juice in the second half!” he told LFCTV.
“First half I was enjoying football, I was finding passes, I was playing the game that I loved.
“I think you can tell by the way that I played it was special for me to be back out there and help the team win the game.
“But as good as it was personally to be back out there and starting, the overriding feeling is disappointment not to be able to carry on in this competition.”
In his own post-match interview with TNT Sports, Klopp lauded his No. 66 for the influence he had on the game prior to slowing down.
“It was clear that we put a hurdle in our way [in the first leg], but I liked the game a lot for a long time,” he said.
“The commitment, the desire, the power the boys showed was incredible.
“And it’s then really tricky to get kind of a little rest, like these rhythm changes, we were a bit too hasty in moments then where it’s like ‘go again, go again, go again’, quick restarts.
“That didn’t influence the game really, just gave us a bit of a problem physically.
“Obviously you could see, a bit unlucky, if Trent is a bit fitter, can go a bit longer…
“How he started the game was absolutely insane, they had no clue how to defend that.
“But then obviously he was running out of gas slightly, then we missed that, so the longer the game went, we changed offensively, but lost then structure, these kinds of things.”
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