Trent Alexander-Arnold will leave Liverpool in the summer having won every trophy possible with his boyhood club. And yet against Arsenal this weekend, the sour note on which he will depart was made abundantly clear to those as yet unaware of the emotion surrounding his exit.
Booed before, during and after the game by a vocal portion of Anfield — not everyone, by any stretch, but a substantial amount — Alexander-Arnold became the story in a fixture that Liverpool should have won comfortably but ended up drawing. His introduction came with little more than 20 minutes to go, but ended up dominating the narrative.
There is no doubt, even if Arne Slot insisted otherwise, that it impacted the game. It was a distraction. That was, in large part, why Alexander-Arnold chose to announce his exit when the Premier League title was already wrapped up — but there is no perfect time to make it public that you want to go.
Some are angry that Alexander-Arnold is joining a European rival — a side that Liverpool has done battle with plenty of times in the modern era and will no doubt do so again in the future — while others believe that leaving as a free agent is poor form. Either way, those who booed — and those who didn’t — are entitled to their opinion.
As the signing of “It was always Liverpool,” came from The Kop — something that Virgil van Dijk said when his recent contract extension was confirmed — it was clear that there was an unease at Alexander-Arnold playing at Anfield six days after announcing that he would be moving on.
“It is a privilege to live in Europe, where everybody can have his own opinion and everybody can express his own opinion,” Slot, as calm as ever about the situation, said at the final whistle. “That is something we saw today as well.”
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“It is definitely difficult for him because I think he said himself how difficult it was to leave this football club,” Slot added. “And that is something that is important for us to hear as well, because we have to make it as difficult as possible.”
Ever since he came to Liverpool, Slot has shown he has the right knack of saying the right things at the right time. He, like his predecessor, has a good way with words, even without English being his native tongue.
And he is right, of course, that Liverpool must make it as difficult as possible for players to decide to leave. Alexander-Arnold felt that the balance still tipped in favor of La Liga — but most stars (Van Dijk and Mohamed Salah, for instance) would be desperate to put pen to paper on a new deal and continue working under Slot.
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“I think if you clap it is not as loud as if you boo,” Slot reasoned when he was asked about the reaction. “But I didn’t count the amount of people booing and the ones that clapped for him.
“Like I said, they have the right to express their opinion. I think the first thing they did is give credit to Steven Gerrard one more time for the player he has been for this club. Then they sang for Conor Bradley, who deserved that completely because he played great [for] 60 or 70 minutes.
“He played really well and then afterwards, if you tell me 60/40, 50/50, 40/60, I don’t know. But what I do know is clapping is not as loud as booing.”
Whether Alexander-Arnold’s treatment was fair and justified or not, and whether he has made the right decision or not, the one thing that Liverpool cannot allow before the season ends is for its title celebrations to be overshadowed. But that seems pretty unlikely.
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While it is undeniable that Anfield’s party atmosphere was changed by Alexander-Arnold coming off the bench against Arsenal, it should also be true that Liverpool’s coronation will go on.
Whether Alexander-Arnold plays at the Amex Stadium next Monday or is left at home, and whether he is central to the game against Crystal Palace and the following Premier League trophy lift, presentation and open-top bus parade or not, the focus should not be on him, no matter the depth of feeling.
In his goodbye announcement, Alexander-Arnold insisted that his decision should not be the main thing that Liverpool fans speak about in the coming weeks. He won’t want to be because it will only be negative attention if that is the case — but it is a wider, more unselfish standpoint to take too.
“I’m just hoping that we’re able to carry on winning games,” Alexander-Arnold said. “The noise [around my decision] doesn’t take away from the fact of what we’ve achieved this season.
“It has been an amazing season. It has been amazing to be part of it and I just hope that everyone is able to maybe not dwell on this news for too long and be able to celebrate what the rest of the lads have done.”
He doesn’t get to decide how people feel about the situation, of course, but he is also right. Liverpool has won the Premier League for just the second time and is about to celebrate a title win for the first time in three and a half decades. Nothing — not even its number 66 heading for the exit door — should threaten to get in the way of the party.
