Liverpool vice-captain Trent Alexander-Arnold put an end to the speculation about his future on Monday by confirming that he would be departing his boyhood club at the end of the season.
While his next destination has not been officially confirmed yet, it is thought that he will put pen to paper on a contract with Real Madrid soon. The Reds tried everything to convince him to stay, but in the end had to accept that the player wanted the one thing that Liverpool could never offer him: a change, and a new challenge.
The move has not gone down well with Liverpool fans, with Jamie Carragher among those to insist that Reds fans should be free to feel however they want about the announcement. It has been coming for some time, but was never going to please those who wanted the Scouser to stay put.
“Those footballers who are good enough to have established themselves as icons at those historic clubs might believe there is only one small step left to take to get to the biggest in the world,” he wrote for The Telegraph. “But making that next move is still risky.
“What is gained in the short term can be sacrificed in terms of a legacy once a career is over. And although it might sound like a cliche to say you are ‘part of the family’ once you are loved by the fans of the biggest, most storied clubs, it is true.”
With Alexander-Arnold on the way out, though, his mural at Anfield is set to remain. At least for now, the Liverpool ECHO reports that there are no plans to remove it when the player moves on.
(Image: Marc Atkins/Getty Images)
“I think first and foremost, I want to say it’s not an easy decision,” Alexander-Arnold explained to the official Liverpool website. “There’s a lot of thought and feeling that has gone into it.
“I’ve been here 20 years now, loved every single minute of it, achieved all my dreams, achieved everything I’ve ever wanted to here. Giving everything day in, day out for 20 years, I’ve got to a point now where I feel like I need a change.
“I need a new challenge for me as a player and as a person. And I think now is the right time for me to do that.
“Obviously there’s been a lot of noise around what the decision was going to be and how that was going to look. I know a lot of people will say I should have said sooner, a lot of people will say maybe I waited for the right time.
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“But I felt personally the focus should always be on the pitch, should always be about the football. When we were in a title race and trying to push for trophies, it’s about making the right decision for the team and trying not to distract the team and take away from what we’re doing on the pitch.
“For me, it was always to do it after the season was kind of done; not so much the final game but when there was nothing else really to play for. Now that we’ve won the league and we’ve been able to celebrate it and celebrate such an amazing achievement, I felt like now is the right time to get it off my chest and tell the fans the truth, and now is that time.”
Liverpool.com says: Alexander-Arnold was never going to make himself popular by announcing his departure. The most important thing is that Liverpool has a plan for the future, though, and can replace him properly. It won’t be a direct replacement in terms of it being someone of the same style, simply because that would be impossible, but getting another body in will be vital.
