Alexander-Arnold, meanwhile, continues to recover from an injury and was left on the bench. He would have been delighted with the performance of his teammate, though, as Bradley largely thwarted Mbappe from causing much danger at Anfield.
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The standout moment for the young defender came when he smashed into a tackle on Mbappe, ending a promising move from the visitors. Bradley not only cleaned out the Frenchman but won the ball and got up to start an attack of his own.
The incident generated quite the stir on Merseyside with a giant roar greeting the thumping slide. It continues a fine run for Bradley after he broke into the first team earlier this year under Jurgen Klopp.
Carragher, who has been in the spotlight this week for comments about Liverpool and Mohamed Salah's contract stand-off, went on to make a bold (if not tongue-in-cheek) claim about Alexander-Arnold. It comes with the 26-year-old attracting interest from Los Blancos.
Like Salah and Virgil van Dijk, Liverpool risk losing Alexander-Arnold for free next summer if they do not agree a new deal with him sooner rather than later. In January he will be able to negotiate a pre-contract transfer with clubs, such as Madrid, outside Europe.
Carragher, though, had something else to add. “Coming into this game, there’s been a lot of talk about Real Madrid looking to buy Liverpool’s right back," he said. "But, I’m not sure if that player is called Trent Alexander-Arnold or Conor Bradley!"
Henry, watching on in the CBS studio, could hardly believe what he had just heard. "Wow!" he replied. That followed his gushing praise of Bradley for that tackle.
“Boom!" he said when reflecting on the already folklore challenge. "That’s it. When you go into someone like that at the beginning of the game, you’re going to struggle."
Henry added: “We see him making that run, every time - he fancied it. You could see, he fancied himself against Mbappe. Everything he did was spot on. We were waiting for Salah, we were waiting for Mbappe, but we saw Conor Bradley, so fair play to him.”
He finished: “Conor Bradley was just outstanding. I think he didn’t have to do a lot defensively because Mbappe didn’t do a lot offensively. So, it became very easy. But the positions he takes right now, what he can do and how he understands when he needs to make that run.
“The assist [for Alexis Mac Allister] was not a Trent Alexander-Arnold assist, in all fairness, but still, he is where he is supposed to be.” His manager, Arne Slot, agreed.
"Did Conor play the ball square to Macca [for the first goal]?" he asked briefly in the post-match press conference. "He was in a strange position then as a right full-back!
"It is nice for him, his family, and for us but also for the Academy, that a player comes through the ranks and does so well. But it is not only Conor, Caoimh [Kelleher] and Curtis [Jones] were outstanding and all of them were but to have three academy players doing so well is a big compliment for the academy at this club.
"Conor did very well, but I am totally not surprised of him doing so well because he showed it last season and this as well, so it's very nice for him."
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