Brighton & Hove Albion 0-1 Liverpool: 5 Talking Points, Premier League 2018-19

#4 Liverpool's rearranged rearguard didn't matter

Trent Alexander-Arnold took a knock to his ankle in the pre-match warm-up

With Joe Gomez and Dejan Lovren missing, and Joel Matip only fit enough to make the bench, Klopp had to fit Fabinho in at centre-back, and was given a further scare in the pre-match warm-up.

Trent Alexander-Arnold had pulled up with an ankle knock, and for a few minutes, it did look likely that further rearrangement would be a necessity. But the youngster pulled through it despite carrying the knock.

He did look visibly uncomfortable in the first half, especially. in the early exchanges. Brighton really should have taken notice of that side of the Liverpool defence, and they did mount all of their rare attacks through that side.

But Alexander-Arnold did just enough to stop Locadia for most of the game, whereas Fabinho was excellent, in general, up against the hefty threat of Glenn Murray.

Given that Brighton almost outright refused to attack on Virgil van Dijk's side, most of their long-balls towards Murray went to Fabinho's side, and the Brazilian dealt with the threat expertly, winning ALL of the aerial duels that he contested.

In the end, despite the uncertainty in terms of availability of personnel, it didn't change much for Liverpool as they came out of the game with their 13th clean sheet in 22 league games. Quite astonishing.

Helps when you have someone like this fella, doesn't it?

I wouldn't mess with Virgil van Dijk 😳 pic.twitter.com/ULgFpzisd1

— RF9 🇧🇷 (@SambaRole) January 12, 2019