Football
Glenn Price, Liverpool correspondent 7y

Liverpool's Trent Alexander-Arnold hailed by Ragnar Klavan

Liverpool defender Ragnar Klavan has heaped praise on youngster Trent Alexander-Arnold after he made his first Premier League start in Sunday's 1-1 draw at Manchester United.

Alexander-Arnold, 18, was a late replacement for the injured Nathaniel Clyne at right-back and showed few signs of nerves during his 90-minute outing at Old Trafford.

Reds boss Jurgen Klopp hailed the academy graduate's display on the weekend as "an outstanding performance."

"Really big compliments to Trent," Klavan, 31, told the club's official website. "To step in at such short notice a couple of hours before the game and then perform like he did at Old Trafford, that shows he has a lot of quality and he's a good player."

The Estonia centre-half also praised goalkeeper Simon Mignolet for his performance against Jose Mourinho's side.

The Belgium shot-stopper produced a number of excellent saves to preserve the Reds' 1-0 lead, but was unable to prevent Zlatan Ibrahimovic's equaliser six minutes from time.

"He has been amazing for us," Klavan said of his keeper. "He is always there for us when needed and he's doing a brilliant job."

Meanwhile, Divock Origi has said Liverpool were not surprised by the physical approach taken by United.

After the fixture, Klopp spoke about the difficulty to deal with the host's direct approach towards the later stages of the match.

"I think it's a little bit of a disappointment because we obviously wanted to win," Origi said.

"In some parts of the game we were very strong and in some parts we had to be more positive and play more up.

"Overall, it was an intense game and of course we wanted to win, so I think we have to analyse the game after to see what was good and what was bad.

"We knew they would be physical, so I think the thing was to match the physicality and also combine our game. [The game plan was to] play football and use our qualities, deep balls combining with playing football in the middle."

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