If the speculation is true and Trent Alexander-Arnold has deliberately run down his contract in order for Real Madrid to sign him on what is effectively a ‘free transfer’, will it trash, or at least tarnish, his memory at Liverpool? A player who has been at a club since he was six owes it some kind of loyalty, right? You’d think so, wouldn’t you, and my feeling as an armchair fan is that many fans will never forgive him. But this isn’t just football. It’s big business and anyway, a player’s first loyalty will always be to himself.
It took me much of a lifetime to realise that simple fact. I had watched my team Bristol Rovers play through many decades and always admired those players who played for the badge and the shirt and treated with contempt those who didn’t. Getting to know people who were closely involved in the game, the truth about the professional game drove away my innocence. A player may have started off as a fan of the club he plays for but like anyone else who works for a living, the only thing he really wants is the most lucrative contact for the longest period. Whether that’s at a lowly third tier club or the potential champions of England, it’s the same thing.
The irrational side of me stands to condemn Alexander-Arnold. There is something fundamentally wrong about what he is doing, by running his contract down. But for his considerable footballing ability, he might have been on the Kop instead. Instead, he is a hero of the Kop and by one selfish action, you might say, he won’t be for much longer.
I am convinced that players don’t play for the badge and never have done. Even the loyal, long-serving one club veterans have at some point made a decision based upon what was best for them. They don’t think, “Well, I love this club so much I’m going to take the shittiest offer they make me!” They consider what best suits their short, medium and long term futures and take it from there. Trent Alexander Arnold is believed to trouser around £180,000 a week, a sum that would be enormous for most people if earned every year, but he can get more than that at Real Madrid, believed to be a basic salary offer of £220,000 a week with all manner of add-ons.
I hold the view that rich people – and Trent is already a very rich man indeed – can never have enough money. That’s unlike plebs like me who make a bag of a fag packet calculation of what we need to get by and be comfortable and leave it at that. But if I was Trent, what would I do?
What a stupid question I have asked myself. Lacking basic football ability to start with, barely to hold down a place in a bang average parks team, how the hell could I possibly put myself in Trent’s position? It’s not even worth thinking about nor worth considering. The nearest comparison in my life would have been if an employer had approached me during my long and unsuccessful civil service ‘career’ and offered me better pay and conditions for doing much the same sort of work. I certainly wouldn’t have said, “No thanks. I’m very proud to wear the badge of the Department of Work and Pensions and owe them for the loyalty they’ve shown me by paying me crap wages all these years.” Only someone doing the bare minimum to get by and capable of managing on low wages would surely stay?
Trent Alexander-Arnold is one of the finest players of his generation, a unique, generational talent and knows his worth, or at least his agent does. And it is surely no coincidence that details of his move to Real Madrid are being leaked now in order to put pressure on all concerned parties, likely by agents representing the clubs involved and of course the player himself.
Liverpool fans can already see the finishing line for this season which should lead to another Premiership title. Many of them will be fearful that the imminent loss of a star player could derail the team. I doubt it. We are talking about professional footballers, not some lads having a kickabout at the local field.
I don’t think that there is any doubt that Alexander Arnold’s lustre will be damaged if it is perceived he has done the dirty on the club that nurtured him from the start, investing in a stellar talent. But when he runs out in the Bernabéu next season, I doubt that he will give it a thought, at least not until inevitably Real Madrid play Liverpool in the first match in the Champions League at Anfield.
Players just want to play and they just want to play at the club that pays them the most money. And loyalty? What does that even mean these days? In football, very little, I’m afraid.
