What to do with the Reds' right-hand side?

And could Nicolò Barella be the answer?

Liverpool finished their mediocre league campaign with seven wins and three draws. It was the home game against Arsenal that started the mini renaissance, aided by the change in system deployed by Jürgen Klopp.

So what is this new system all about? Perhaps to get the team going and to see whether this can be used next season, Klopp decided to change Trent Alexander-Arnold’s role while tweaking the positioning of other players.

Because Trent is so good on the ball, moving him into midfield when the team is in possession made a lot of sense. The upsurge in the 24-year-old’s creative range and defensive game was there for everyone to see.

But why midfield? While trying not to sound repetitive, frankly that department was desperate for help throughout this season. Fabinho was struggling to do the dual role of mopping out attacks and playing those first phase passes to get the team moving forward.

By having Trent alongside him, the Brazilian started focusing more on the defending and counter-pressing, and left all the forward passing work to the former.

Now, if we analyse Liverpool's right-hand side, the new system has pushed the right-sided number eight (mostly Jordan Henderson) wider and allowed Mohamed Salah to make those penetrative runs from out to in, something we were used to seeing from him in a Red shirt until this season for some strange reason.

Below, we have a table of the three players that chiefly played on the right-hand side of the Liverpool formation this season - Henderson, Salah and Trent Alexander-Arnold, and find out what changes occurred when the system was tweaked.

xGBuildup -the same xG as above but without shots and key passes.

While his key passing average remained the similar because he was an excellent chance-creator at right-back as well, Alexander-Arnold’s involvement in build-up with/without key passes and expected assist numbers have gone up a level. Mind you, 0.33 xA per 90 is already good for a fullback, but improving on that when moving to midfield is even better.