Trent Alexander-Arnold may not have played in Wednesday’s Merseyside derby but it was clear how much the victory meant to him as he beamed at the final whistle.
The England right-back is currently sidelined with an ankle injury but was at Anfield to watch Curtis Jones impress as an auxiliary right-back against Everton. With both Alexander-Arnold and Conor Bradley unavailable, Liverpool head coach Arne Slot favored Jones over Jarell Quansah to fill in on the right side of the defense.
Slot had said that Jones was a contender to start the Carabao Cup final there last month, but ultimately plumped for Quansah on that occasion. Jones got the nod against the Toffees, though, as Liverpool kept a clean sheet in a 1-0 win.
Alexander-Arnold was waiting for Jones by the players’ tunnel at Anfield after the final whistle and gave his teammate a big hug, with the pair both laughing as they celebrated victory together.
Jones then went down the tunnel as Alexander-Arnold remained by the dugout, waiting to embrace the remainder of his teammates as they left the field. Alexander-Arnold may well have played in his last Merseyside derby after it was widely reported that he is set to join Real Madrid as a free agent at the end of the season.
The 26-year-old’s current Liverpool contract expires on June 30 but Madrid could sign him as early as June 1 after the Premier League took advantage of the option to open an exceptional transfer window between June 1 and June 10 — an option which was offered to FIFA member associations which have clubs competing in this summer’s revamped Club World Cup, which gets underway on June 14.
Slot was asked about Alexander-Arnold ahead of the derby and told Sky Sports: “There has been no change at all in his behavior or the way we look at things. Nothing has changed at all. No, not for us, not for me. I’ve worked with these three players [Alexander-Arnold, Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah, who are all out of contract at the end of the season] for almost eight or nine months now, and the same situation is still there. The outside world doesn’t know what’s going to happen.
“There is a lot of talk about [Trent], like there is about Virgil and about Mo. But that also tells you what a quality player he is, because there are many players around the world that have a contract that ends in the summer, and nobody talks about them.
“But there are a lot of [people talking] about these players for the simple reason that they are so good. But here in the building, we don’t talk about that.”
