When Trent Alexander-Arnold leaves Liverpool to affix Real Madrid this summer, a move which reports indicate he’s on the verge of finalising, he’ll achieve this having won every major honour in football.
Winner’s medals for the Premier League, Champions League, FA Cup, League Cup, Charity Shield, Super Cup, and Club World Cup will likely be shipped from Merseyside to Madrid alongside the sort of knick-knacks and bric-a-brac the remainder of us are used to sorting through when moving house.
Over the course of nine years since his senior debut, Alexander-Arnold has been a key component of probably the most successful teams in Liverpool’s illustrious history.
The England international has in fact worked under stellar managers in that point and played alongside a number of the world’s absolute best players, but an infinite role has undoubtedly been played by his combination of an immense level of technique scarcely shown by any full-back and his ability to make vital contributions in probably the most crucial moments.
When such a successful player leaves a football club after a protracted time, they’re typically lauded and thanked for his or her contribution. And yet, Alexander-Arnold is already being viewed by loads of Liverpool supporters as a despicable traitor whose legacy now lies in tatters.
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Why are some Liverpool fans so indignant with Trent Alexander-Arnold?
Throughout the season up to now, speculation over Alexander-Arnold’s future has been met with consternation and antipathy from a big proportion of Liverpool’s supporter base. When the Reds drew with Manchester United at Anfield in January, shortly after a renewed series of claims that he was prone to move to Spain free of charge, he was met with a barrage of booing and name-calling from fans within the stadium almost immediately after kick-off and throughout the remainder of the match.
Now that confirmation of a free transfer exit to Carlo Ancelotti’s side seems imminent, demands that the 26-year-old be stripped of the vice captaincy, that he shouldn’t play for the club again before the top of the campaign, and that a mural of him near to Anfield must be painted over have turn out to be commonplace online.
Alexander-Arnold must shoulder loads of the blame for the response himself. Within the autumn he drew criticism for telling Sky Sports that he would slightly win a Ballon d’Or than one other major trophy with Liverpool.
Then in December, after scoring from outside the box away at West Ham, he celebrated by putting his hand to his ear and mimicking gossip. However the speculation he was seemingly mocking only existed because he was refusing to comment on his future in public, and was indeed negotiating his own exit from his boyhood club. A gesture that seemed bizarre enough on the time is now downright incomprehensible in hindsight.
Moreover, there may be a widespread belief in football that local, home-grown players owe a far greater deal of loyalty to their club than those transferred in from elsewhere. That Alexander-Arnold is leaving Liverpool, at some extent through which they appear primed for further success under Arne Slot, and on a free transfer, is a big factor behind the ire his decision is drawing.
Why might Alexander-Arnold feel leaving Liverpool is the suitable thing?
After all, it is tough to rationalise the concept that a millionaire athlete who has achieved all the things together with his team could possibly owe anything more to those that have revelled in those achievements for one of the best of a decade.
Surely it have to be possible for such a player to earn the suitable to go and take a look at their hand at something else, to decide on to live a distinct life, after delivering a cupboard stuffed with trophies and a swathe of stellar days out.
Though Liverpool are well set as much as kick on under Slot’s stewardship, if Alexander-Arnold were to remain at Real Madrid for ten years, it could not be unreasonable to presume that – at a bare minimum – he would win something like five league titles and three Champions Leagues, given the speed at which Los Blancos have hoovered up trophies within the twenty first century up to now.
What Liverpool legends have said about Trent-Alexander Arnold’s transfer
Michael Owen: ‘It’s all about personal preference because he has won all the things he can at Liverpool and can already go down as a club legend. After I made the choice to go away, we weren’t nearly as good as this current Liverpool team. From his viewpoint, it could be a cut off point and he would likely spend the remainder of his profession at Real Madrid.’
Steve McManaman: ‘If he feels as if he desires to experience a brand new lifestyle, recent language, recent culture, I’d don’t have any qualms in any respect. It might be an enormous miss for Liverpool but when he desires to do it, I’d completely respect him and be very proud, because he’s an area lad who has done incredibly well, which is what I like greater than anything.
‘Real Madrid are a much bigger, more skilled, well-run machine now than after I joined. They’ve the brand new (revamped) stadium, and a few of one of the best players on this planet. After all (fellow England international) Jude Bellingham is there, who’s near Trent. He’s won every trophy manageable with Liverpool.’
John Aldridge: ‘If he feels as if he desires to experience a brand new lifestyle, recent language, recent culture, I’d don’t have any qualms in any respect. It might be an enormous miss for Liverpool but when he desires to do it, I’d completely respect him and be very proud, because he’s an area lad who has done incredibly well, which is what I like greater than anything.
‘Real Madrid are a much bigger, more skilled, well-run machine now than after I joined. They’ve the brand new (revamped) stadium, and a few of one of the best players on this planet. After all (fellow England international) Jude Bellingham is there, who’s near Trent. He’s won every trophy manageable with Liverpool.’
The counterargument to that’s, that having been born and raised in West Derby, winning less with Liverpool should carry more weight than winning near-constantly with Real Madrid. In some unspecified time in the future Alexander-Arnold has clearly decided that, despite his roots, he doesn’t buy that argument.
And as for the shortage of transfer fee, Liverpool never paid one in the primary place for a player who has outperformed all others in his position for the vast majority of his profession up to now, and so the concept that he now owes them one in return is illogical.
Alexander-Arnold seems to have felt the identical. 4 years ago, aged 22, he decided to sign only a four-year cope with Liverpool slightly than committing for even longer. That was perhaps an indicator even then that he and people around him have at all times been planning to give you the option to maneuver free of charge at age 26.
More generally, not enough British footballers are willing to try their hand at playing abroad, living in one other culture, and testing themselves in a distinct context. That Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham and now Alexander-Arnold have done so lately is probably a sign that horizons are broadening amongst this generation of players.
Is the response to Alexander-Arnold’s move to Real Madrid fair?
Football fandom is an inherently irrational pursuit. What a set of supporters would deem perfectly reasonable behaviour from a player at one other club is so often deemed ludicrous and offensive when done by one among their very own.
That’s underscored by the incontrovertible fact that loads of the identical Liverpool supporters who’re criticising Alexander-Arnold for walking out on the club he has supported since infancy now were imploring Real Sociedad midfielder Martin Zubimendi to do the exact same a 12 months ago when the Reds were attempting to buy him.
It could be juvenile and immature, but additionally it is the reality – football fans want all the things their very own way on a regular basis. They aren’t overly concerned by logic and fairness. And in the event that they don’t get what they need they’re liable to reply with outlandish, melodramatic rhetoric, turning on those they once extolled as gods amongst men and kicking them to the kerb.
Alexander-Arnold is much from the primary footballer to maneuver on knowing the incredulous response the choice will bring about. By the top of his profession, only he’ll know if he still believes it was the suitable thing to do.
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