Alderweireld hails Davies over centre-back shifts

Toby Alderweireld spoke of his “trust” in Ben Davies after another excellent performance from the Welsh international at centre-half on Wednesday night.

Moving in-field from left-back to deputise alongside Toby in last weekend’s 1-0 win over Burnley, Ben enjoyed another solid shift manning the barricades in the heart of our defensive unit as we beat Arsenal on their own patch to progress to the last four of the Carabao Cup, the 2-0 triumph representing a second clean sheet of the week and our first ever at the Emirates Stadium.

On the end of virtually every ball that came into the box, Davies won plaudits from many onlookers – and his centre-back partner.

“You always know he can play there and I think he’s been performing very well in the last two games,” said the Belgian international. “For Wales, he plays in a three-man central defence on the left. He’s a very smart player and he knows what to do.

“You can trust him – he’s very reliable. When you’re next to him, you know what he’s going to do. When I step in, I know he’s going to be there at my back and the same the other way around, so there’s a good connection there. We know how to play and we talk a lot.”

In addition to praising Ben, Toby was impressed by the work ethic of the whole team as we secured a well-earned win thanks to goals either side of half-time from Heung-Min Son and Dele Alli.

“The team worked hard for the clean sheet, not only the defenders,” he added. “We dug in – we knew we had to get a good result to get to the semi-finals.

“It’s obviously a difficult place to come, I think sometimes you need to have a little bit of luck as well, but we played very well.”