Trent Alexander Arnold replacement? Jeremie Frimpong completes €45m Liverpool move

Deal completed 

©TM/IMAGO

On Friday Liverpool confirmed that they had signed Bayer Leverkusen defender Jeremie Frimpong to a long-term deal, after agreeing a fee with the Bundesliga club. Transfermarkt understands that the Anfield side triggered the defender’s release clause and that the deal will come to a total of €45 million, making Frimpong the club’s most expensive signing under Arne Slot, surpassing the €30m spent on Valencia goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili. And while Virgil van Dijk remains Liverpool’s most expensive defensive signing of all time, having joined the club from Southampton for €85m in 2018, Frimpong will move into second place ahead of Ibrahima Konaté’s €40m move to the club in 2021.

“It went quite easy. Liverpool came and said they had interest, and obviously for me it was a no-brainer,” said Frimpong in a press release on his new club’s website. “For me, it was like, ‘Whatever you guys do, just get this done’, [speaking to] my agents: ‘Just get this done.’” He added: “Liverpool fans, I’m going to give my all, my energy, my work-rate and hopefully we can win together, we celebrate together, get everything together. I’m just excited to be here. Thank you guys for accepting me and I won’t let you guys down and I’ll give you the energy that you guys want.”

Naturally, Liverpool’s need for a new right-sided defender comes in the wake of Trent Alexander-Arnold announcing his departure from the Anfield club, with the England international completing a move to Real Madrid this week. Slot does have 21-year-old talent Conor Bradley to call upon at right-back next season, but the club will definitely need more than one option in that position going forward and Frimpong will certainly offer more options for the Dutch tactician. But how good is the former Leverkusen star and is he an ideal replacement for Alexander-Arnold?

Is Frimpong the perfect Alexander-Arnold replacement?

In terms of total attacking output, there’s a lot for Liverpool fans to get excited about with Frimpong joining the club next season and replacing Alexander-Arnold on the right wing. Over the course of 190 games for Leverkusen, the Dutch defender has bagged 30 goals and 44 assists. That’s more goals than Alexander-Arnold bagged in 353 games for Liverpool, but naturally the England international picked up far more assists (92) over the course of his 353 senior appearances for the Premier League giants. But, as we can see in the graphic above, when it comes to total goal contributions per 90 minutes for both sides, Frimpong has averaged more than his potential Liverpool predecessor, clocking 0.47 per 90 compared to Alexander-Arnold’s 0.37. Of course, the English defender is at a slight disadvantage due to playing far more games than Frimpong in this comparison, but it’s worth bearing in mind that even if we narrow the comparison down to just this season, Frimpong still comes out on top with 0.44 goals and assists per 90 compared to Alexander-Arnold’s 0.35 per 90. 

However, that’s perhaps as far as the direct comparisons between the two players can go. While Alexander-Arnold relies on his remarkable range of passing, Frimpong is a far more direct wing-back, instead opting to dribble by opposing players to create chances in the final third. This difference is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that Alexander-Arnold’s preferred secondary position is probably as a central midfielder, where he can play long passes and through balls into the final third, while Frimpong’s was as a right winger or even at times as a secondary striker in Xabi Alonso’s team, due to his speed and dribbling ability. As such, while both players play in the same position, they are very different types of players and require different systems and tactics to get the best out of them. And that’s something that Liverpool fans and Slot will have to bear in mind if Frimpong was tasked with replacing Alexander-Arnold next season. 

For example, Alonso has been able to get the best out of Frimpong because he has awarded the wing-back the attacking freedom to attack opposing defences without much need to defend. The Leverkusen boss has done this by largely playing with a back three in no less than 73% of his games in charge of the German club. In stark contrast, Slot has played with a back four in each of his 54 games in charge of Liverpool to date and while the Dutch manager could switch to a back three to accommodate Frimpong, it would not only require the Anfield boss to remove a midfielder or forward from his line up, but also add another central defender to the starting XI. And at this moment in time, Liverpool can only call upon four natural central defenders in their entire squad. So if Frimpong does indeed make the move to Liverpool, he may force Slot into making some big changes to his set up and system ahead of the new season.