While attention is quickly turning towards Trent Alexander-Arnold’s legacy once he leaves, Liverpool still have a title to win before he goes…
SOMETIMES, everything has been said.
Trent Alexander-Arnold is many things.
He is the vice-captain of Liverpool Football Club. In that sense, I can be disappointed.
He is a Liverpool-born footballer who wants a new challenge abroad. For that, I can be empathic.
It becomes a situation where, once again, our responses vary. No opinion is invalid, but shouldn’t ever go beyond the pale.
This situation isn’t Steve McManaman, nor is it Michael Owen. It is a concoction of emotional factors which has sent the Liverpool-supporting circadian rhythm into meltdown since Tuesday.
Again, this is allowed. Benefactors of national media enduring a turgid international break have rightly lapped up some juicy transfer tattle.
Guillem Ballague is making impassioned, but not impartial pleas for us to see the humanistic element of any deal before signing off with a nauseating ‘welcome to Madrid’. Vox pops in Liverpool are only interested in people wanting to hear the player criticised.
There is never a good time to drop such a bombshell. Whoever briefed the news knew that. There is enough vacuum to exhaust loyalty, legacy and everything in between before Liverpool next kick a ball.
In Alexander-Arnold’s case, the question of legacy is fair to ponder. But legacy in general is a strange concept. The type we’re talking, when figures stop playing and become mythical legends immediately, are incredibly rare to come by.
Legacy is, after all, someone’s lasting impression. That takes time to mature, because the game and the need to win never stops. Recent history is football’s greatest form of amnesia.
Legacies can also change. In recent Liverpool history, the legacies of huge figures like Steven Gerrard and even Jürgen Klopp have been tarnished to some supporters because of their affiliations with Glasgow Rangers and Red Bull.
Maybe it will take time for all Millennials and Gen Z’s to age and arrive at the point of passing down tales about how good a player or manager was for legacy to be truly realised.
It’s very rare we actually mean legacy in this case. What we’re talking about is myth. It’s what that player could do that current stewards of the shirt can’t. The streets won’t forget Alexander-Arnold in that sense. He has truly been one of the most gifted to grace Anfield.
None of that helps in this situation. Alexander-Arnold might become a contested figure in everyone’s all-time Liverpool XI, but he is justified if his own trophy cabinet is filled with Madrid goodies.
The difficult, squirming caveat is that Liverpool are also successful in this era. A 20th Premier League seems inevitable in Arne Slot’s first season. It should be exciting to be part of.
What else could motivate him at this point other than personal goal?
The concept of not being ultimately sacrificial to the cause, to the club who reared him, rankles many.
Alexander-Arnold might see that differently. That his talent belongs to him and that he is nothing if not self-made.
I can’t get angry. Mainly because once you get past a certain age you’re engulfed with perspective, but ultimately because I think Liverpool will be fine.
Back in September, I said the player leaving would be a huge PR disaster for the club and I stand by that. But none of us really know what has happened. The decision is a result of Liverpool ineptitude and shifting priorities from a Sporting Director standpoint.
It could also be that the player decided two years ago this was the path they were going to follow and nobody can do anything about that now it’s becoming reality.
Liverpool are playing with a weak hand given the time-sensitive nature of all three contracts, but they won’t be completely helpless to their fate.
Michael Edwards has been back at work for FSG for around a year, and with that will come a ruthless, algorithmic view of the current situation.
The data-informed approach is back, and whether you love or loathe it, it defines strategy in every area including this. Liverpool will have a value for all three players based on projections of future output and worth and they won’t budge.
They aren’t playing fast and loose with the enterprise. This ownership is many things, but it’s very rarely reckless with its own money.
There is a world in which this summer can be viewed with excitement.
By accepting that one squad’s final act of winning the Premier League before being dismantled is risky, but also could be rewarding.
Unlike the situation with Alexander-Arnold, we know both Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah want to stay at Liverpool. That means this doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game. Those situations will undoubtedly be different, we can only await their outcome now.
Ultimately, the reality is that Alexander-Arnold’s situation is amongst the oddest in recent Liverpool history. He is neither hero nor villain, unequivocally.
His final waltz around the Anfield turf may well accompany a Premier League winners medal around his neck. Yet he can’t expect a send-off anything like Gerrard, Roberto Firmino or even Naby Keita.
That will be a morose sight for many, it’s up to both parties how they handle the situation going forward.
For us, the focus should be on the cause and what’s to come.
Legacy can wait.
Buy Dan Morgan’s book ‘Jürgen Said To Me’ on Klopp, Liverpool and the remaking of a city…
