BT Sport pundit Rio Ferdinand has criticised Liverpool right-back Trent Alexander-Arnold for his failure to help Joe Gomez in the 4-1 loss to Napoli on Wednesday evening.

Gomez put in, arguably, his worst performance for the Reds in Naples, but Ferdinand claims Alexander-Arnold’s refusal to trackback (especially for the second goal) was unacceptable:

“What you can’t accept as a manager or as a player is a lack of effort and desire. When people don’t run or don’t have the desire to get back. Gomez makes the mistake but you’ve got to get back and help your team-mates and Trent didn’t do that. Liverpool got teased, they got embarrassed, they got shown up. This result has been coming too. They were lacklustre and lacked grit, determination and desire.”

Alexander-Arnold has been awful (to put it mildly) in recent games. Usually, his lack of tracking back can be excused due to the contributions he makes in the final third of the pitch, but he is not offering anything going forward either.

The big issue for manager Jurgen Klopp is that Trent’s understudy, Calvin Ramsay, is injured, while the main alternatives in the squad (Gomez and James Milner) are also out of form.

It means that Alexander-Arnold will likely keep his place for now, and the hope will be that he rediscovers his game sooner rather than later.