Roy Keane doubling down on Trent Alexander-Arnold criticism shows he's missing the point

Trent Alexander-Arnold rather predictably finds himself being made the scapegoat for England’s dire performance against Denmark at Euro 2024. Unsurprisingly, Roy Keane is leading the backlash.

The Three Lions were held to a 1-1 draw in their second Group C encounter as they missed out on the chance to secure their progression to the knockout stages. With four points from their opening couple of games, England will likely go through anyway, although they will have to wait until after their final group game against Slovenia on Tuesday for confirmation.

Alexander-Arnold was once again named in midfield by Gareth Southgate, although the Liverpool vice-captain lasted less than an hour as England labored to a point. As per usual, the discourse around the performance has mostly centered around one man.

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The dye was already set by the former Manchester United contingent now working as pundits before the tournament even began. The likes of Keane and Wayne Rooney were brazen in their demands for Southgate not to pick Alexander-Arnold in midfield, despite the 25-year-old having been one of England’s standout performers over the past 12 months.

And so, when Southgate seemingly admitted defeat in his experiment on Thursday, Keane of course doubled down.

“When you’ve been taken off in the two games that’s not a good sign,” he told ITV. “I thought it was always a huge gamble to play a player who doesn’t play that position week-in week-out for his club. I know people say he drifts in there for Liverpool, but drifting into a position and staying there and starting are two completely different things.

“I’ve played midfield, it’s a tough position, physically, getting your distances and he’s come up short in the two games.”

Keane is somewhat missing the point here. For years now, we’ve had to listen to pundits incessantly call for Alexander-Arnold to be played in midfield – in fact, Keane even championed the idea when Southgate played him there previously.

Now, with England limping towards qualification from their group, suddenly Alexander-Arnold shouldn’t be anywhere near the position. Make your minds up.

Yes, Alexander-Arnold wasn’t great against Denmark, but then name an England player who was. And this is nothing new – the Three Lions were ponderous in their warm-up games against Bosnia and Iceland. Incidentally, Alexander-Arnold was named player of the match in the former, and only played about 25 minutes in the latter.

Where Keane was right was pinning some of the blame on Southgate. “It’s not all down to him [Alexander-Arnold], you’d have to put this on Gareth. It’s a huge gamble to throw a full-back into the middle of the park,” he added.

He couldn’t resist making one final dig towards Alexander-Arnold though. “[Declan] Rice feels like he’s babysitting him in there and you can’t do that at this level, you will be found out. And he has.”

Ah yes, Declan Rice. For a player who cost Arsenal $126m (£100m/€118m) and supposedly transformed the Gunners last season, he hasn’t exactly covered himself in glory so far this tournament, has he Roy?

It’s no coincidence that Mikel Arteta played much more defensive options alongside him for much of the season in Jorginho and Thomas Partey. Alexander-Arnold is not the same profile of player, and nor should he be.

When he fills his hybrid role at Liverpool, it is always alongside a true holding midfielder, whether that be Wataru Endo or Alexis Mac Allister. Rice is supposed to be that same player for England, but he is clearly not fulfilling his role.

In any case, Southgate should be playing Alexander-Arnold in his best position – right-back. Jurgen Klopp has told him that multiple times, and it therefore should be on the England manager’s shoulders if his midfield experiment is not working.

That probably won’t stop Keane tearing into the Liverpool man since it doesn’t chime with his ‘tough guy’ persona. Rather than continually slate Alexander-Arnold for his performances in midfield though, he should be asking why there was such a clamor for him to play there in the first place.