Some Liverpool fans are absolutely seething about Trent leaving; others are embarrassed by that small-time reaction.
Send your views on this subject – and any others – to theeditor@football365.com
Let’s start with a joke…
Like someone sauntering in at the back post, I think Trent is going to struggle to defend this.
Si, LFC
Goodbye Trent and good luck
It’s been clear for some time that Trent wanted to leave Liverpool but it’s still sad as a life-long fan to hear him confirm that it’s true.
Football tribalism dictates that many will not forgive him. He will be compared to other former great players, Macca and Owen and for some his reputation will be sullied.
But not for me (Clive).
Maybe it’s because I’m not from Liverpool, maybe I’m just weird, but I have nothing but gratitude for Trent. He’s given his life to the club and been a fundamental part of a multi-trophy winning period of our great history.
He isn’t leaving as we’re just about to get back to the top. He isn’t leaving unfinished business. He’s helped get the club back on our perch.
He’s delivered 2 Premier Leagues, a Champions League, the UEFA Super Cup, the Club World Cup, 2 Carabao Cups and an FA Cup. That’s some record and it’s been done against the backdrop of a financially superior club, hoovering up the majority of the trophies on offer. There’s not many who have won more. He’s a bona fide legend!
Why not go and test yourself at the biggest club in the world? Why not move abroad and face a new challenge? It may be the right move, it may not but it’s his decision and fans should not begrudge him his chance.
Yes, I wish he was staying. Yes I wish he was going to help the Slot Machine try to move to a new period of domination. Yes, I would love to see him take another corner quickly! But it’s his choice and I wish him nothing but the best.
Thanks for the memories Trent and good luck.
Adam, York (LFC since 1972)
MORE TRENT COVERAGE ON F365…
👉 Trent Alexander-Arnold ‘tarnished’ by Real Madrid move? Only by idiots…
👉 Alexander-Arnold joins list of every Premier League club’s biggest free transfer exit
👉 Alexander-Arnold replacements ranked as Real Madrid-bound star confirms Liverpool exit
…Liverpool “fans” slagging off Trent for leaving. Stop embarrassing our club. The guy has given us 20 years of his life. He’s won the lot and deserves to go with our blessing. Thanks for the memories Trent. YNWA.
CK
Real Madrid though?
I get Trent wanting to go to Madrid. I completely get it.
BUT, their manager is leaving. Nobody knows who is coming in – does not come into any consideration for any player going there? Curious more than anything else.
Paul
Don’t the door hit you on the way out, Trent
Trent leaving for Real is Trent leaving for Real, it doesn’t (imo) enhance or tarnish his reputation in any way.
Salary wise, he’ll get more. Medals wise, higher chances (just because Real have a more expensive squad, and monetary investment is highly correlated with medals). Ballon chances? Maybe higher as a Real player but I highly doubt for his position.
Then again, what irks biased fans (short for fanatics) like myself are players leaving on a free, especially when the club wants to keep them.
(It’s unfortunately biased, because no one felt pity for Lazar or Naby Keita or Ox leaving. And now we’re ruthlessly looking to replace Andy Robbo who’s looking past it. Or trying to sell Harvey Elliot, Caoimhin Kelleher, Nathaniel Phillips, Jarell Quansah, Joe Gomez… sounds terribly unfair but that’s how it is. Maybe that’s why players don’t give their hearts to the club too).
So to quote Klopp on Couty, “stay and they’ll build u a statue”. Trent’s departure means, he no longer has that special pride of place in our hearts where we’ll build him statues, both metaphorically and physically. He’ll just join the ranks for Steve Macca, EMO, Javier Maschy, who’ve donned LFC colors once upon a time but that special emotional connection, esp born and raised in Liverpool, will just be cut. That’s just how it is.
Does that matter? Maybe not materially. But here’s one way it matters. When Real’s attacking 4 don’t track back, when the DM (Zubimendi or otherwise) doesn’t cover 70% of the earth unlike Kante, Trent’s going to be stuck with a very bad dilemma.
– Either venture upfield / infield to create, as his natural instincts/ raison d’etre is wont to be, why Real paid big bucks for him, and his one claim to Ballon prospect. Have wingers and LBs run wild in the space he leaves behind. Create one in 3 games while conceding every other game from those gaps being attacked. Be condemned in the near term.
– or be nailed behind to avoid leaving gaps, look like an insipid RB who’s occasionally dodgy earning galactico big bucks. And suffering fan criticism in the medium longer term.
Liverpool sees Trent as a local son and an integral part of the team. Klopp and Slot both make plans taking his strengths and weaknesses into account, allowing him to flourish. Fans leash on Trent is long even with occasional gaffes. All these advantages at Liverpool turn into liabilities at Real, where Trent at RB will never be featured.
No one wins a Ballon in isolation. The system is biased toward attacking players, who will then require water carriers to cover for them (Messi and Ronnie). Without sufficient water carriers at Real, who are already overloaded covering for Real’s front 4 who are notorious for not tracking back, what are Trent’s chances of winning a Ballon? It sounds like sour grapes from a biased fan(atic), but I think Trent’s more likely to get his Ballson the Floor, getting trampled by Real fans on his way being hounded out.
In conclusion, speaking as a jilted fan, Trent don’t let the door hit you on the way out. U’ll no longer have favored local son one-club status, whatever it means to you. You’ll just be another talented star footballer who’s passed through Anfield. Don’t be surprised if your mural get defaced or disappears, because that’s to celebrate your local son status. And when u suffer in Real, good luck.
Gab YNWA
MORE TRENT COVERAGE ON F365…
👉 Trent Alexander-Arnold ‘tarnished’ by Real Madrid move? Only by idiots…
👉 Alexander-Arnold joins list of every Premier League club’s biggest free transfer exit
👉 Alexander-Arnold replacements ranked as Real Madrid-bound star confirms Liverpool exit
…“On this occasion Alexander-Arnold has chosen adventure; only a narrow-minded and perspective-challenged minority will begrudge him that decision.” So says Sarah Winterburn in a chef’s kiss of selective use of logic.
Of course rationally Trent owes the fans nothing, of course his dedication, excellence and trophy haul should allow for a celebration of his time at Liverpool but it won’t…but of course it won’t.
If football fandom was logical we wouldn’t pay to watch the thing. If it was logical we certainly wouldn’t travel internationally to see it and it wouldn’t have the ability to break your heart or rank upon your best days. Football has always spoke to the heart way more than the head.
More over if football was logical I’d argue Sarah, F365 and a whole ecosystem of football commentary wouldn’t exist at all, why would we care what you think after all?!
So I’d argue cherry picking the parts of fandom that you like and benefit from is equally a narrow minded view as those who will feel utterly betrayed by a man they never met deciding not play football for a club they love.
As for Trent, he gets his adventure and that’s his choice but he loses the love of the fanbase and that’s their choice.
Dan Lawlor
…It was all rather predictable that pundits and ex-players immediately to lecture Liverpool football fans on how they should react to the news that Trent is leaving for Real Madrid. What baffles me is how pundits, journalists and ex players forget or don’t know what it is like to be a fan. Being a fan is irrational, torturous and wonderfully silly at times. You experience the highs and lows of your team, mainly lows for Arsenal fans.
While Trent has earned his right to play for another team and will wish him the “best”, Liverpool fans have to right to withhold their affection or adulation for him in the future. With this choice, he will not be as revered as Salah, Gerrard, Van Dyke and that is ok as well. Just don’t complain about the tepid responses on the return to Anfield years from now. It may be just me, but Real Madrid seem like a cesspit at present.
Joel Wilt
Is the drama better than the football?
A good friend of mine visited for the weekend and we got chatting about football, me a Liverpool and him a Newcastle fan (albeit a lukewarm one.)
I was looking forward to a good chat in my middle-aged male isolation. Asked him about the football and his answer was intriguing. Did he talk about Newcastle, the League Cup, Isak, our final together? None of the above. His answer was…”I’m not really that into the football side of it anymore but I enjoy the drama around it. I’d rarely watch a match anymore but I enjoy the podcasts and that.”
I was surprised but not really. I suspect his is not an isolated position. He really had no interest in football as a game involving 11 players running around the field, the players, the tactics, the goals, the moments, even the results of trophies did not seem to carry much weight for him. But he did speak at length on other matters.
We spoke for several hours about the corruption surrounding football, how since Abramovich people and now countries of great wealth have used Premier League teams to further their own aims. He was very well informed having recently read Miguel Delaney’s “states of play” book. We spoke about how countries won world cups, how officials were bribed, how rules and regulations are avoided and what the motives for all of this were.
It was all very interesting. We later had the same discussions about the internet, Amazon, Facebook, MAGA, Meta and YouTube and how governments struggle to regular these companies or groups and the effects on us as common citizens.
But at no point did we discuss actual football, actual movies, books or videos. We discussed the medium not the message, the drama not the goals.
I left the weekend much better informed about the world and happy to reconnect with an old friend. But also wondering is there where a lot of us are now? I’ve had this thought many times reading articles and mailboxes: is anyone here actually interested in the football anymore? Or is it just the drama around football that has us hooked? And yes I get the irony that I’m not writing a letter to the mailbox with nothing to do about actual football so no need to point that out..I’ll write that one next.
My wife (a very astute woman) having dated me for a few months and witnessed my football obsession told me “I get it now, football isn’t just about the football for guys, it’s the drama around it as well, it’s like soap operas for dudes” and she was right (not the first or last time!)
But I think the difference was and still is that I love to watch a game of football, live or on tv. I love the goals, the tactics, the flow of momentum and the human psychology of how moments change games and mindsets and hope we cope. Like Rory McIlroy standing over a drive in Augusta with the world watching and a twitch of his hands will blow his dream apart, or when Mo Salah steps up and nails an unmissable penalty and you just wonder how do they hold it together in those moments with the weight of the world on their shoulders.
I’m happy to say it’s still the football that excites me most. I get the drama but does it really bring us joy if that’s all we have. It seems at times a lot of people on here could use watching a good game of football again and remembering why all those years ago they fell in love with this game in the first place, and it had nothing to do with whatever days manufactured drama happens to be.
Dave LFC – Called it last April in the mailbox when Edwards came in after Klopp announced his departure “everything’s gonna be alright” like Bob Marley/Paisley said
Footy fans are not unique
I have to say that I thoroughly disagree with John Nicholson’s assertion that ‘Footy fans are unique; they keep coming back despite the crap’.
If we consider the repetitive MCU shite that Hollywood farts out all the time (‘starring’ that same actors over and over) or the formulaic, vacuous reality TV which for some reason is extremely popular, I don’t think football fans are alone in accepting crap.
At least with football there is an emotional aspect, whereas films and TV would seem to be indicative of a greater, more universal intellectual decline!
A, LFC, Montreal (Didn’t like the Reds giving Chelsea a helping hand)
