The Aggregate: Rumoured Liverpool Target Can Replace Trent Alexander-Arnold's Strength

While Conor Bradley progresses the ball through carrying at an elite level, Liverpool will need someone to pass progressively. They may have found their man.

It makes sense to name a series on potential player replacements ‘The Aggregate’ after the famous scene in Moneyball, especially with how Liverpool operate in the transfer market. If the scene in question has passed you by, allow Brad Pitt to explain it for you.

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It’s over. You don’t need to tell me. Trent Alexander-Arnold has no distance left to run at Liverpool. He will leave the club this summer having won it all, with the vast majority of supporters grateful for what he has given to the Reds.

If Liverpool do not possess a ready-made replacement, they do at least have a right-back of tremendous potential in Conor Bradley. He will fulfill the role in a different way to Alexander-Arnold, but so would anybody the club happened to sign. Arne Slot will have to settle for a talented horse after being blessed with a unicorn for his first season in England.

As discussed previously in this series (see below), Bradley is among the elite of big league defenders for ball progression. The issue for the Liverpool of the future is that he does this far more through carrying whereas Alexander-Arnold is a passer supreme.

Mohamed Salah has been able to thrive this season thanks to two key factors. He doesn’t have to defend much, so can stay high up field. This in turn means he can be swiftly unleashed onto opposition defences via sharp passes from the back.

If Bradley can play the lengthy deliveries Salah craves, he has largely kept this information to himself. The Northern Ireland captain has completed a shade under a quarter as many long passes per 90 minutes as Alexander-Arnold in his Premier League career.

Liverpool’s right flank is set for an evolution. Even with Bradley’s ball carrying prowess, a chunk of Trent’s progressive passing will be lost. If a recent transfer rumour proves to be correct, the Reds will be deploying our old friend The Aggregate to fix that shortfall.

A recent article from Hamzah Khalique-Loonat in The Times has highlighted exactly what needs replacing:

“Alexander-Arnold averages 0.26 xAG [expected assisted goals] per 90 this season, the highest of any Premier League full back, and the 14th highest of any player (with 1,000 minutes or more) overall…

We could use something that’s a bit better, such as xA (expected assists), though – xA is defined as the likelihood a pass becomes a goal assist. Alexander-Arnold’s 0.24 xA per 90 is the fifth highest in the league.”

Bradley isn’t getting close to those marks, at least not yet. His career xAG average is half of what Liverpool’s number 66 has put up this season (which is below his output in the last three campaigns), with his xA further adrift still. The creativity gap shrinks on open play key passes alone, per Understat, which is more encouraging.

Alexander-Arnold’s passing profile has been tweaked slightly under Slot. While he is averaging more progressive passes than ever before in the league (8.7 per 90), his passes into the final third have dipped since last season and he last created fewer chances per 90 way back in 2018/19. Once Liverpool figure out how to get the ball forward effectively following Trent’s departure, the other aspects of passing should be easier to replace.

Step forward, Angelo Stiller. He’s a 24-year-old midfielder for Stuttgart who signed for the club seven days after Wataru Endō set sail for Anfield in the summer of 2023.

It has been reported this week that Liverpool are interested in signing the four cap German international, with his club looking for around £51m in return for a player with three years remaining on his contract.

Stiller’s longest international appearance came against Ryan Gravenberch and Cody Gakpo

An article on Transfermarkt reacting to the Liverpool rumour described Stiller as ‘the new Toni Kroos’. It’s a weighty comparison, one which the Stuttgart man has played down by describing Kroos as “the best German player of all time.” However, Stiller added: “Toni and I are similar in terms of playing style, and just like him, I try to put my stamp on the game with my strengths."

Maybe Real Madrid would be better off signing him than Alexander-Arnold given their midfield issues? It would be a twist nobody (especially Trent) saw coming.

We can disregard that possibility. Even so, the Kroos similarity is not without merit, as we are about to see.

To replace Alexander-Arnold’s passing output, Liverpool need to find close to nine progressive passes per 90 with the same level of passes into the final third (though there is some crossover). Let’s set a bar of 0.3 for xA as that is Trent’s Premier League career mark.

Here are the 15 instances of players achieving these benchmarks across at least 1,800 minutes in one of Europe’s big five leagues over the past eight seasons. They are sorted by their age.

Kroos? Present. Alexander-Arnold? Here, sir. Stiller? He’s just showing the new boy, Pedri, the ropes around here.

Every German in the sample has Bayern Munich in their DNA. Shaving a few points off the xA requirement would see Thiago Alcântara make several appearances on the list too.

Stiller came through the ranks at the club, though only clocked up 64 minutes at first team level. He is reportedly on their radar again, much like any half-decent Bundesliga player will be.

Without having seen him play, the physical data contains a kernel of concern. Stiller’s top speed of 30.35 km/h ranks a lowly 410th in the Bundesliga. It’s a shade below what James Milner recorded earlier this season (30.39 km/h) to provide some concerning context.

Playing 91.2 per cent of possible Bundesliga minutes since the start of last season shows the Stuttgart midfielder ticks the availability box, at least. Whatever happens this summer, the Stuttgart man passes the Liverpool transfer plausibility test on most levels.

As Alexander-Arnold said in his recent video in which he explained the reasons for his departure, “it’s not about wanting to find something better.” Just as a Liverpool-born player can’t find a better team to represent, so the club he is leaving can’t find a superior right-back.

Replacing Trent’s passing output from elsewhere in the team is of paramount importance though. Stiller has the skills for the job.