Alexander-Arnold’s Liverpool future needs settling soon, for everyone’s sake

When Liverpool ruthlessly dispatched Manchester United on their own turf earlier in the season, one of the enduring images of the afternoon was of Trent Alexander-Arnold at the full-time whistle, holding aloft three fingers — one for each of the goals his team had scored — to a jubilant away end at Old Trafford.

On Sunday, however, Liverpool’s struggles against United in a breathless 2-2 draw at Anfield were perhaps best typified by the sight of the right-back trudging toward the dugout to be replaced by Conor Bradley as the hosts desperately sought a late winner.

While Alexander-Arnold was far from the only player in a red shirt who failed to hit the heights, the postmatch analysis saw him bear the brunt of the criticism from fans and pundits alike. He lost the ball 25 times against United, won none of his five duels and recorded a passing accuracy of just 74.6% — slightly below his season average of 76.5%. It was an afternoon to forget for the England international at the end of a week that will live long in the memory of many Liverpool supporters, for all the wrong reasons.

If Alexander-Arnold — who is out of contract at the end of the season — had been hoping to silence the noise surrounding his Anfield future with his goal celebration against West Ham United last week, it is fair to say that his actions did not have the desired effect. With reports from Spain that the 26-year-old had already committed to joining Real Madrid as a free agent in the summer emerging in the buildup to the 5-0 win at the London Stadium on Dec. 29, Alexander-Arnold marked his first Premier League goal of the season against Julen Lopetegui’s side by raising his hand to his ear and making a “talking” gesture. The celebration became the subject of intense scrutiny, with some taking it as a sign that chat of Alexander-Arnold’s impending exit was premature.

Less than 48 hours later, though, the Madrid hierarchy appeared to suggest otherwise when they approached Liverpool about signing their vice-captain in the January transfer window. A source told ESPN those advances were quickly rejected and no official bid was tabled. But while Liverpool’s swift rebuttal seemingly put paid to the idea of Alexander-Arnold leaving his boyhood club this month, Madrid’s overt interest has set the stage for what could now become a toxic and protracted transfer saga.

It must be noted that the responsibility for this turmoil, in what has otherwise been a serene debut season for Liverpool head coach Arne Slot, does not lie solely with Alexander-Arnold. Before kick-off at Anfield on Sunday, a banner was unfurled on the Kop depicting the right-back, alongside teammates Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk, with the caption: “FSG give Mo & Co their dough.”

That all three players will, as things stand, be able to leave the club as free agents in a few months represents a glaring oversight on the part of Liverpool’s owners, Fenway Sports Group, and the club’s footballing hierarchy. That said, Liverpool’s failings do come with a number of caveats; chiefly that the past couple of years have witnessed seismic change at the club, in the dugout and behind the scenes.

Typically, a club of Liverpool’s stature would look to secure a player to a new contract when there is around two years left on their existing deal. However, when Alexander-Arnold, Salah and Van Dijk were in such a position in the summer of 2023, sporting director Julian Ward left the club after just one year in the role. Former Wolfsburg sporting director Jörg Schmadtke was then drafted in as an interim, but the scope for long-term planning was further scuppered when Jürgen Klopp announced in January that he would be leaving at the end of the 2023-24 season.

It is understandable, then, that Alexander-Arnold and his teammates would wait to see the club’s direction of travel under Klopp’s successor before they made any concrete decisions about their future. Alexander-Arnold, in particular, shared a close bond with Klopp, who handed him his professional debut and oversaw his rise to becoming one of the Premier League’s finest-ever right-backs with more assists than any other defender in the competition’s history.

But, with former AFC Bournemouth technical director Richard Hughes officially assuming the role of sporting director in June, and with Slot making a flying start to life on Merseyside, there was an expectation that headway would be quickly made in negotiations with Liverpool’s out-of-contract triumvirate. While Salah has regularly voiced his frustration over the lack of progress made — recently insisting he is “far away” from agreeing a new deal — Van Dijk and Alexander-Arnold have largely remained tight-lipped on their own situations, with the latter having publicly addressed his future only once, after Liverpool’s 3-0 win over Bournemouth in September.

“I want to be a Liverpool player this season [as a minimum] is what I will say,” Alexander-Arnold said. “I have been at the club 20 years now. I have signed four or five contract extensions, and none of those have been played out in public — and this one won’t be either.”

At the time it was viewed as an admirable stance, but, as murmurings from Madrid have continued to grow louder, Alexander-Arnold’s silence has become deafening. Rightly or wrongly, the defender is held to a higher standard by supporters than Salah or Van Dijk, having been born and raised in the city he now represents on the pitch.

The trade-off for that adulation when things are going well is greater scrutiny when things are not, and that is a lesson Alexander-Arnold is now learning the hard way. It is worth noting that, for all Madrid’s overtures, conversations over a contract renewal at Liverpool have been taking place with Alexander-Arnold’s camp for several months, and the club insist the player has not yet indicated a desire to leave.

Even if the defender does decide to seek pastures new in the summer, there is an argument that he should go with Liverpool’s best wishes, having helped the club to the Premier League and Champions League titles and represented the first team with great distinction over the past eight years. He would not be the first player to be tempted by the bright lights of the Bernabéu, where silverware is almost guaranteed and there is the chance to be catapulted to superstardom. With him having given two decades of service to his boyhood club, who could deny him the chance to explore a new opportunity?

But football is a sentimental game and there is a significant portion of the Liverpool fanbase who would feel betrayed should their local hero depart at what looks to be the start of an exciting new era under Slot, particularly to the club who, since 2018, have defeated them in two Champions League finals.

At a time when profit and sustainability rules (PSR) dictate how freely clubs can move in the transfer market, the prospect of losing a homegrown asset for nothing would sting and has inevitably led to comparisons being drawn between Alexander-Arnold and Steve McManaman, who left Liverpool to join Madrid on a free transfer in 1999. Madrid’s January approach also has the potential to destabilise Liverpool as they look to pursue Premier League and Champions League glory. Certainly, it would be naive to assume that Alexander-Arnold and his camp had no prior knowledge of Madrid’s advances, and, for that, the player deserves some criticism.

Ultimately, though, Liverpool are in a sad situation that is partly of their own making, whereby a player who has done more than enough to be revered as one of the club’s all-time greats has now become the easiest target for supporters’ ire.

Many of the fans who attended the game against United will have walked past a mural erected in Alexander-Arnold’s honour on Sybil Road, just a minute’s walk from the stadium. It depicts Alexander-Arnold alongside the words: “I’m just a normal lad from Liverpool whose dream has just come true” — an emotional remark made after his team’s triumph in the 2019 Champions League final. For the sake of both the defender and for Liverpool, clarity over his future must be established sooner rather than later, or else that dream is at risk of turning into a nightmare.