Martin Keown has suggested that Jamie Carragher has to take some blame for Trent Alexander-Arnold’s Anfield abuse.
The departing Liverpool vice-captain was booed when he came off the bench and every time he touched the ball during a 2-2 home draw against Arsenal, his first game since announcing he will be leaving on a free transfer.
Expected to join Real Madrid, Alexander-Arnold was compared by someone else who made the same journey by Carragher.
The former Red questioned whether Alexander-Arnold wanted to be a ‘Steve McManaman or Steven Gerrard’ by leaving on a free to Los Blancos, and he chose the former option.
During the Arsenal draw fans also chanted in favour of deputy right-back Conor Bradley as well as belting out Gerrard’s song after their departing hero came on, perhaps reminding him what he could’ve had.
And Keown thinks Carragher may have played a part in that and the boos.
The talkSPORT pundit and Arsenal legend explained: “I don’t think it’s helped when other former players have been a bit incendiary.
“Saying ‘which player do you want to be compared to, Gerrard or McManaman?’ By the way both players were equally brilliant for Liverpool and how do you judge the two?
“Maybe the fans think, ‘how does anyone want to leave Liverpool?’ Well do you know what, there’s news for you. Players do, there’s new things for them. He’s a top talent and I really wish him well now at Real Madrid.”
Keown also praised the Spain-bound defender’s reaction to the boos, as he clapped the home crowd at the end of the match.
“I want to say that Trent Alexander-Arnold, I thought he was magnificent yesterday,” he continued.
“The way that he accepted the reaction of the fans. He didn’t offer up the ear and say, ‘Okay, this is what you want to present to me, I can only give my best’.
“I think he’s one of those where, because he’s the fan on the pitch, a local lad, done well, they live it through him and they desperately wanted him to be there.
“Of course he loves that club, he always will, it’ll always be his club. But professionally, he’s taking his show to another club, he’s going to have another experience, another country.
“He wants to go and experience something else, he’s won everything in the game. And what’s wrong with that?
“He can walk the streets of Liverpool a very proud man, and he should be allowed to do that.
“It’s happened in the past, [Kevin] Keegan left and [Kenny] Dalglish replaced him.”
Briefly taking the other side of the debate, former Crystal Palace owner Simon Jordan attempted to explain things from the supporters’ point of view.
“He’s chosen to run his contract down,” Jordan said. “He’s not responsible for Liverpool not wanting to take a £20million bid for him in January, granted. But he’s run his contract down, so we know that the beneficiary of that is going to be him.
“So if a section, or a large proportion of Liverpool fans inside a football stadium want to boo, this is an emotional business.
“The reason why footballers are rewarded so well in such an illogical way is because emotion fuels the business of this sport, which drives the broadcasters to want to pay the money that they do, which turns it into a commercial opportunity.
“So you can’t have all the emotion that gives you the rewards from a football and then be unhappy that it comes back the other way.”
