Trent Alexander-Arnold was expected to use the occasion to challenge newly appointed Liverpool manager Arne Slot. Rather, he ultimately provided England manager Gareth Southgate with food for thought.

It is Southgate’s intention to use Alexander-Arnold in midfield. In the interim Euros team announcement, he was listed as one, and he began the match against Bosnia and Herzegovina wearing the prominent number eight.

That occurs amidst a continuing discussion. Jurgen Klopp experimented with Alexander-Arnold’s role in his final 18 months at the helm, but has generally used him as a full-back at Liverpool, and Slot will now need to decide whether to follow suit.

For England, Alexander-Arnold scored the second goal in a 3-0 victory. However, the truth is quite different from what would seem to indicate—namely, that Slot would be permanently moved to midfield.

This is because Alexander-Arnold had been shifted back into defence by the time he scored the goal that ended the game. This was not a criticism of the work he had been doing in the middle, which had been generally good if unexceptional — an evaluation that encapsulated a huge portion of the entire game.

Alexander-Arnold entered the game from the right and produced a lovely volley, demonstrating deft skill to steer the ball back across the goal and into the corner. It was the kind of impact that only a full-back base could have produced.

The Liverpool player has always showed a strong reluctance to play right back for Southgate. His international opportunities were shockingly limited, even when he was dominating in that position for the Reds, up against players like Kyle Walker, Reece James, and Kieran Trippier.

Given that Adam Wharton was a notable midfield player when he came on, Southgate may now be considering whether Alexander-Arnold would have been better served in his initial role going into the tournament. But the objective really provides Slot with a solution to the problem.

It emphasises the fact that Alexander-position Arnold’s has never truly been the question. How to move him into situations where he can have the biggest impact on games is the only thing that matters.

At the back end of 2022/23, that was undoubtedly in the novel hybrid role. It appeared to give Alexander-Arnold a new lease of life, kickstarting a season that had been stalling on a personal and collective note.

But in the campaign just gone, it’s debatable whether Alexander-Arnold’s talents were being truly maximized. Injuries disrupted things, and he did have some moments of real brilliance in a kind of ‘quarter-back’ capacity, but his numbers were a long way off the days when he was smashing the single-season assist record for a defender.

For Slot, the first and only priority is finding the best way to harness Alexander-Arnold’s massive talents. He has the tools to be a generational player, and while the debate over his best position feeds into that, the new Liverpool manager can play him just about anywhere as long as he gives him a platform to shine.