If Trent Alexander-Arnold is tempted to leave Liverpool, you wouldn’t blame him.
The club’s owners, Fenway Sports Group (FSG), should have made him an offer he couldn’t refuse by the summer of 2023 at the latest — tying him up for what could be his best years and promising to make him the symbol of a new era. Instead, the organisation has let the situation get away from them.
Jurgen Klopp’s success meant he was given almost total control over footballing decisions, with a vacuum in the sporting director department following the departure of Julian Ward in 2023. Even when Jorg Schmadtke was appointed on an interim basis, contract renewals did not fall within his powers. That responsibility continued to sit with FSG president Mike Gordon, who had stepped back from his involvement in the day-to-day running of the club.
It all resulted in a muddled recruitment policy whereby, on the one hand, Liverpool decided to pull away from the pursuit of Jude Bellingham to focus on more affordable targets, while also offering £111million ($148m) for Moises Caicedo (albeit on lower wages), only for Chelsea to outbid them.
Throw in FSG’s decision to effectively put the club up for sale in November 2022 before changing their minds three months later, as well as Klopp’s surprise announcement of his resignation in January, and you begin to see how Alexander-Arnold’s contract situation may have fallen down the club’s list of priorities.
Now, however, it should be near the top. Asked after Saturday’s win over Bournemouth if he wanted to stay, Alexander-Arnold replied: “I want to be a Liverpool player this season is what I will say.” He may not have wanted that to be interpreted as him exerting pressure on the club, but fans would be forgiven for feeling twitchy when they read it, especially amid a recent round of reports suggesting Real Madrid are interested in signing him.
There would be logic to Real Madrid’s interest. Their right-back, Dani Carvajal, will turn 33 in January and he, too, is approaching the end of his contract. Though reports in Spain suggested he will sign a new deal and remain at the Santiago Bernabeu until 2025, he will need to be replaced eventually.
The presence of Bellingham at the Bernabeu could also be a factor. Despite representing different teams in different countries, a rapport between Bellingham and Alexander-Arnold has emerged — in July, they holidayed together in Los Angeles and their joint celebration for England during Euro 2024 underlined their bond.
Considering Alexander-Arnold’s yearning to perform in an “elite” environment, as he suggested after the victory over Bournemouth, he will surely now have a better understanding of what awaits him in Madrid if an offer comes for him to go there.
Even though he suggested in a 2018 interview with Liverpool’s website that he “dreamed” of staying at Anfield forever, Alexander-Arnold would not receive much pushback from sensible supporters if he decides, at the age of 26, to depart. This is not a Steven Gerrard situation, or before him, Steve McManaman, when the team relied almost entirely on both players and it felt as though them walking out ended any hopes of winning a league title.
McManaman ran down his contract and signed for Real in 1999, nine seasons after Liverpool’s last championship. For Gerrard, the gap had extended to 15 years when he announced his intention to go to Chelsea, just weeks after lifting the club’s first Champions League (or European Cup) in two decades. In the end, he rowed back inside 24 hours after realising what it would mean for his family.
Both Gerrard and McManaman were local-born players who had come through the system at Liverpool. So is Alexander-Arnold, although the context around him is different because, in terms of trophies, there is little else for him to achieve at Liverpool. Sections of the fanbase might be persistently irritable because of a perceived lack of investment by FSG, but that anger is not as acute as it once was due to the success figures like Alexander-Arnold have helped deliver.
In Madrid, he would surely be a wealthier man. Wages aside, he is out of contract and that means a significant signing-on fee. While experiencing a new lifestyle, which given expectancy levels and pressure might not be as relaxing as it sounds, he would also end up lifting more trophies with a squad that is set up to dominate Spanish football and regularly compete to win the Champions League.
Yet leaving Liverpool would surely also trigger some regrets. Alexander-Arnold continues to say he wants to be the club captain and he is, in theory, the next in line to do so considering his current role as deputy to Virgil van Dijk, another player whose contract runs out next summer.
Though Alexander-Arnold has won a league title, it did not happen in the way he dreamed of given pandemic restrictions meant fans stayed locked out of Anfield. During an interview with The Athletic in 2021, he admitted it motivated him to try again; to be able to see the reaction of the city he comes from at its loudest.
By leaving now, history would probably remember him as a very significant Liverpool figure rather than one of its all-time greats. In any debate about an all-time Liverpool XI, Alexander-Arnold is not a guaranteed starter because, among those with longer memories, he would still be competing for the right-back spot with Phil Neal, Liverpool’s most decorated player.
While Neal was an important part of the team in Liverpool’s most dominant era, he was nowhere near as spectacular and did not play a primary role in its creative build-up.
Neal would captain the team for just a season after Graeme Souness’ departure in 1984, but he did not win a trophy. If Alexander-Arnold took on the same responsibility and helped steer the team to another league title, many would think he would overtake Neal in this conversation.
Perhaps Alexander-Arnold thinks he can return to the club one day like Ian Rush did following a spell with Juventus. There is a risk with that, though, as Michael Owen knows only too well. He thought he would be sorry if he didn’t try life in Madrid, only to find that after leaving Liverpool, there is no guarantee of finding a way back.
It is, of course, not certain that Liverpool win another title any time soon and that this is fundamentally at the root of Alexander-Arnold’s thoughts. As he pointed out, trophies are his main concern.
To some degree, it would be a romantic decision to stay. The last local player to captain Liverpool to a title was Phil Thompson in 1980, a feat Gerrard never achieved. For many, Gerrard remains on a pedestal with only Kenny Dalglish for company. If Alexander-Arnold leaves, we’ll never get close to knowing whether he was good enough to join them.
(Top photo: Carl Recine/Getty Images)
