Arne Slot has just had one major Liverpool decision made for him before pre-season begins

You would think that the answer was obvious and yet the clamor to see Trent Alexander-Arnold play in midfield has never gone away. The best right-back in the world for Liverpool's system has been the subject of much discussion for years.

The idea that Alexander-Arnold is so bad defensively that he cannot play at full-back is nonsense — he has, after all, won the Premier League and the Champions League while playing that role — but even if it wasn't a myth, the solution is not to shift him forward. In midfield, he has to do as much defending as in his old position, but with less space in which to do what he does best.

For all that Alexander-Arnold is very much not the biggest problem for England — that is the lack of an attacking plan and an insistence in playing multiple players, and not just the Liverpool man, out of position — the European Championship has offered some obvious insights.

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Alexander-Arnold has always excelled as a full-back and gets do to bits in midfield too when he plays the inverted role. But when deployed as a full-time midfielder, there is work to be done.

That should be no surprise, of course. Liverpool's vice-captain hasn't played in the center since he was a youth talent and has been shifted there — because there is 'no obvious alternative to Kalvin Phillips', according to Gareth Southgate — with next to no preparation. That, clearly, has shown.

And while there is legitimacy to the argument that Alexander-Arnold himself might want to play in midfield more often, the circumstances in which that happens have to be right. A major tournament, where England is desperate for an easy scapegoat, does not represent that.

While Jurgen Klopp was never a fan of having Alexander-Arnold in the middle full-time, that does not mean that Arne Slot has completely ruled it out. But even if he wants to try it, this summer is not the right moment.

If England makes it to the final of Euro 2024, as unlikely as that might seem, there will only be a month to go then before the Premier League kicks off again. Alexander-Arnold will need a holiday regardless of when the Three Lions are sent packing and so his pre-season will be limited.

So while Liverpool's players will begin to reconvene at the AXA Training Centre in Kirkby from the start of next month, Alexander-Arnold may still be with England at that point. He will have very little training time before the new campaign starts again.

Even if Alexander-Arnold is back earlier than initially anticipated, it is not just him who would need to get used to playing in midfield: the players around him would have to get used to him being there. The whole team would have to adapt. Alexis Mac Allister's role would change, for instance, and he and Argentina could still be playing in the Copa America in the middle of next month.

For that reason, even more than the limited effectness of Alexander-Arnold playing in a double-pivot for England, this summer is not the time to be making a radical change to the position of a key player who has already proven himself to be world-class in his current role. England has proven that and Liverpool must surely have come to the same conclusion too.

The Alexander-Arnold conversation will not become extinct because of England's failure, but it highlights how hard it can be to integrate a player in a new role on a whim. It takes time, and that is simply not a luxury Slot has during his first pre-season.