Trent Alexander-Arnold has outlined the importance of his Liverpool winner against Fulham in the context of the Premier League title race - and explained why it left Virgil van Dijk with "cuts on his knees'".
The Reds scraped past the Cottagers on Sunday thanks to a late strike from their vice-captain
Trent had kicked off proceedings with a stupendous free-kick, which was later awarded as an own goal after cannoning in off Bernd Leno.
The 25-year-old was not to be denied and with two minutes of normal time remaining he completed Liverpool's comeback, after they had fallen 3-2 behind after taking their foot off the gas.
Before Alexander-Arnold volleyed home to seal a 4-3 victory.
Trent
"I don't even know if I can sum it up in one word, delighted really"
"We needed the three points with Arsenal getting the result, we needed to stay in touching distance - at this time of year, the games come thick and fast, if you can pick up momentum in the Christmas and January period and come out with wins going into February and March... this isn't the right time to drop points."
Trent added
"At home, we need to be putting games away, we controlled the game but all three of the goals we conceded were sloppy."
"We got punished for our sloppiness at the end of the day, it wasn't about luck, they took advantage when we were not at our best, but it was important for us to get three points."
"We got punished for our sloppiness at the end of the day, it wasn't about luck, they took advantage when we were not at our best, but it was important for us to get three points."
Alexander-Arnold felt that the scenes after his winning goal emphasised how important the strike was and explained why his involvement left captain Virgil van Dijk not best pleased.
Trent
"I think you can see by the celebration how much it meant,"
"I've got a big cut on my knee so I didn't want to risk reopening that with a knee slide so I thought I had to do something. You can see the emotion in it, how much it meant to the team and the fans."
Asked whether his captain was happy with him, Alexander-Arnold continued:
"He's (Van Dijk) got cuts on his knees because it's the first time he's done a knee slide for someone like him who is calm and composed to knee slide shows how much it meant to the team.
"It was massively important to stay in and around the top of the table. We've got a big week ahead of us which starts in midweek, it was good to get momentum going into that."
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