Former Manchester United captain Gary Neville has sympathised with Liverpool fans after star player Trent Alexander-Arnold announced he will leave the club at the end of the season.
Liverpool are eyeing Jeremie Frimpong as a replacement for Trent who confirmed his departure on social media earlier this week.
The announcement resulted in a mixed reaction from Liverpool fans, some of whom expressed anger not just for leaving his beloved club to move on, but also for doing so without a transfer fee.
However, Neville offered a more balanced take, likening Alexander-Arnold’s situation to David Beckham’s high-profile switch from Old Trafford to Los Blancos in 2003.
Gary Neville compares Trent Alexander-Arnold’s move to Real Madrid to David Beckham’s
Neville acknowledged that while it’s understandable for Liverpool supporters to feel disappointed, the draw of joining a club like Madrid is hard to resist, especially for a player in the prime of his career.
The Sky Sports pundit emphasised that the appeal of joining Real Madrid, the opportunity to play with Jude Bellingham, Kylian Mbappe, and Vinicius Junior, and the chance to compete regularly for major trophies make it almost impossible to turn down.
Even the Red Devils, with all its power and prestige, couldn’t prevent key players like Beckham, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Ruud van Nistelrooy from making the same move.
Discussing his departure on the It’s Called Soccer show on YouTube, Neville said:
“I think I can see this situation really well because it’s happened to me at United a couple of times — where great players have left. One of my best friends left to go to Real Madrid.
“While David [Beckham] wasn’t from Manchester. He was absolutely a huge United fan. His mum and dad didn’t want him to go — they were lifelong United fans. He’d been at United since he was 13 or 14. So, while he wasn’t born in Manchester, he was effectively an adopted Mancunian and had won everything with United.
“I just think there’s one club — it happened with Ruud van Nistelrooy, it happened with Cristiano Ronaldo, it happened with David Beckham — the one club where you’re going to struggle to keep someone if that club comes calling. Because it’s a giant. A giant club, a giant stadium, the players they’ve got… they’re always in the latter stages of the European Cup.
“I can see why Liverpool fans are upset. But I can also see why Trent Alexander-Arnold decided to take this new challenge”
David Beckham’s move isn’t exactly the same as Trent Alexander-Arnold leaving for Madrid
Liverpool fans will argue that David Beckham’s situation was not the same as Trent’s.
One of the main reasons for the fans’ anger is that the player decided to run down his contract in order to join Real Madrid on a free.
Meanwhile, Beckham did not want to leave Manchester United, and only chose to join Real Madrid after the club decided to sell him to Barcelona.
| English Player | Club Joined | Year |
| Laurie Cunningham | Real Madrid | First Englishman at the club |
| David Beckham | Real Madrid | Joined in 2003 |
| Michael Owen | Real Madrid | Joined in 2004 |
| Jonathan Woodgate | Real Madrid | Joined in 2004 |
| Jude Bellingham | Real Madrid | Joined in 2023 |
| Trent Alexander-Arnold | Real Madrid | Expected to join in June 2025 |
Beckham revealed that United had initially agreed to sell him to Barcelona without his consent before he intervened, insisting on a move to Real Madrid.
In a recent appearance on CBS Sports Golazo, Beckham revealed:
“My team was always Real Madrid and funnily enough I got sold from Manchester United to Barcelona.
“I was on holiday, Peter Kenyon phoned me and he said: ‘We’ve accepted a bid from Barcelona and we’re selling you’.
“I said: ‘If you are going to sell me, the only team I want to move to is Real Madrid’, because I always had a dream of playing for Real Madrid when I was a young kid.
“I never thought I’d leave Manchester United but if I did, you know, I’d love to have played for Real Madrid. And if they wanted me to leave then the only club that I wanted to go to was Real Madrid.”
