Liverpool has three players who will be out of contract at the end of this season: Trent Alexander-Arnold, Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah. At least one of them, it appears, will be heading out of the exit door.
Alexander-Arnold is now expected to join Real Madrid and it has already felt like he was the player who would be most likely to depart of the three. Van Dijk and Salah, while negotiations are ongoing over an extension at Anfield, have both made it clear they would like to stay.
Neither of them has been credibly linked with any other team, either. Alexander-Arnold, meanwhile, has been courted by Real Madrid for some time. It was a straight choice: join Los Blancos, or pen a new deal on Merseyside.
Why was Real Madrid the only other team in for the player? In part, it would be the only one with the money and the appeal to do a deal, even on a free transfer.
But in a different era, the Liverpool number 66 might have had another option, too, in Barcelona. Now, though, with the Camp Nou side in a difficult financial position, Lionel Messi’s former club felt that it wasn’t the right move to make.
According to the Spanish outlet SPORT, Barcelona admires Alexander-Arnold greatly with head coach Xavi Hernandez being a big fan of him. But it has other priorities heading into the summer. Additionally, with Jules Kounde also on its books, the Catalan outfit decided that it didn’t need another first-choice full-back.
Real Madrid, in contrast, has been without Dani Carvajal all season because of a long-term injury. The veteran full-back is also now 33 so a long-term succession plan has been required for some time.
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“I’ve said constantly that he [Trent] had to get more serious about his defending,” Gary Neville stated on Sky Sports’ Stick To Football podcast this week. “It will cause him problems.
“I think it will cause him a problem at Real Madrid because they have Fede Valverde, who is playing right-back currently, and Dani Carvajal when he’s back. He’s going to have serious competition.
“The problem is that Carvajal is 32 — he’s had a bad injury — but for me, Carvajal is a better full-back than Trent because of what he gives to the team overall. I’ve never known a right-back get subbed off so many times in important periods of matches.”
Liverpool.com says: Alexander-Arnold has previously stated his admiration for Barcelona but Real Madrid feels like a good fit for him as well. It seems likely he will be a success in Spain and it would be hypocritical of Liverpool fans to suggest anything other than that.
