The Reds star does not score often, so when he struck against Leicester City in December he felt he had to mark the goal in style <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Trent Alexander-Arnold has revealed the motivation behind his Kylian Mbappe\u00a0crossed-arms celebration – while admitting he had to bide his time to show it to the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The Liverpool star found the net on Boxing Day against Leicester City and marked the goal by imitating the Paris Saint-Germain wizard’s trademark pose.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But when quizzed on the celebration, he played down its significance and pointed out that, given he has found the net just twice in 2019-20, he will not get to repeat it too often.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n More teams<\/p>\n <\/i><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n “Mbappe’s celebration! It’s something I do with my mates…we joke around,” he told\u00a0 BBC Sport .\u00a0<\/p>\n “Obviously I don’t score too much, and I was saying for ages that I’d do it when I next scored, and I think it was about three or four months between my two goals, so I’d been planning it for a while!”<\/p>\n That goal, which came in a 4-0 win for the table-topping Reds, was indeed his last in competitive play to date.\u00a0<\/p>\n But Liverpool fans are in no doubt over Alexander-Arnold’s importance to the team as at just 21 he now commands an undisputed role in the club’s starting XI.\u00a0<\/p>\n It could all have been so different for the right-back though had he not moved back down the field from the midfield as a teenager.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n “Who decided the position change? It was me, Neil Critchley and Alex Inglethorpe. Critch was my under-18 manager and Alex was head of the academy. I wanted to get into the first team as soon as possible, and we decided that was the most straightforward route,” he added.<\/p>\n “It was difficult [to adjust] because when you play higher up you are very rarely isolated in a defensive situation. That was the strangest thing – being one-on-one with someone out wide, with no-one to help.<\/p>\n “I’ve always enjoyed right-back as there is a lot more freedom going forward. It’s a lot more chaotic in the middle.<\/p>\n “I probably get more of the ball now than I did when I was in midfield. It’s just about trying to influence the game as much as possible from out there.<\/p>\n “Going into a game I don’t play to make the full-back position ‘sexy’. I just think a lot of people underestimate how important the full-back position is. It’s vital in the sense you’ve got to be up and down the pitch, creating things but also defending.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n “I just go out there and try to make the team win – whether that means I’m playing ‘sexy’ football or not.”<\/p>\n Alexander-Arnold and Liverpool are back in action on Saturday, where they will hope to get back to form at home to Bournemouth after suffering rare back-to-back defeats in the Premier League against Watford and to Chelsea in the FA Cup fifth round.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jurgen Klopp’s men nevertheless remain 22 points clear at the league summit and look destined to claim the top-flight title for the first time since 1990.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n