Liverpool and the curse of the seven right-backs

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And for the first time in a month, Liverpool will be able to call upon a right-back who actually is a right-back; apart, anyway, from Calvin Ramsay, granted one start in the Carabao Cup, one minute in the FA Cup and neither in the Premier League.Dominik Szoboszlai, Liverpool's player of the season, has been dragged into right back from midfield far more often than Arne Slot would have liked (Liverpool FC via Getty Images)This has been the season of seven right-backs for Liverpool and, of the seven, Ramsay has played least. The Dutchman has something in common with Alexander-Arnold having each played right-back for Slot in a title-winning campaign; one for Feyenoord, the other for Liverpool.Of the Liverpool septet – at times, more makeshift than magnificent seven – one is a centre-back by trade, in Joe Gomez, and three are midfielders, in Wataru Endo, Curtis Jones and Dominik Szoboszlai.

He, too, has had three spells on the sidelines this season.There is a case – though the evidence is limited by his bit-part role – that Gomez is Liverpool’s best defensive right-back; they have three clean sheets in the six games he has started there. Frimpong may be the best attacking one: indeed, he was initially not trusted to operate in the back four by Slot, who sometimes instead selected him as a winger, but he brought dynamism around the turn of the year.

The other problem is that he can be a first-choice in multiple positions at the same time: Slot started to turn the tide after Liverpool’s awful start at Nottingham Forest on Sunday by moving Szoboszlai into midfield and swapping Jones to right-back. In November, Slot said he didn’t expect that in February or March Szoboszlai would play every game as a winger or a full-back.