Trent Alexander-Arnold free to leave Liverpool for Real Madrid without guilt, regret or being ‘tarnished’
Inevitable parallels have been drawn between Michael Owen and Trent Alexander-Arnold this week, with the former more than happy to talk about the latter in and amongst the usual complaints that he is not loved in Liverpool, or indeed anywhere else.
Owen left Liverpool for Real Madrid in 2004 and 20 years later, Trent is pondering the same switch. âIt will tarnish him in some eyes even though it shouldnât,â says Owen, who should have added âf*** âemâ as that would be sensible advice to a young man facing the biggest decision of his life.
Alexander-Arnold should give nary a thought to how a minority of people will perceive him. He owes nothing to Liverpool fans that has not been paid handsomely in over 300 games of dedicated brilliance. He has never shirked, he has never grumbled, he has never been anything other than devoted to Liverpool in over 20 years. Only idiots would not think that is enough, and those kind of idiots should be ignored.
The world has got simultaneously smaller and bigger since Owen left Liverpool in 2004; only the most narrow of red minds would now pretend that Real Madrid could not possibly hold any allure, that there is no club that can compete with the Reds, no stadium that can hold a candle to Anfield, no fans like Liverpool fans.
As Owen said this week:Â âGrowing up, if you ask most people what is the biggest club in the world, Real Madrid is the holy grail for a footballer. The white kit, the history, the European Cups, the stadium.â
Two decades on, that sentiment has multiplied. Todayâs children wear shirts from Madrid, Barcelona and Dortmund alongside those of their parentsâ clubs; todayâs Generation Z play FIFA as Bayer Leverkusen and then watch Vinicius Jnr clips on TikTok. And thatâs Alexander-Arnoldâs era. Much has been made of the influence of Jude Bellingham, but Real donât need cheerleaders; they are the biggest club in the world.
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Two other factors set Alexander-Arnold apart from Owen. One is the fact that the right-back has won pretty much everything with Liverpool while Owen had somehow claimed his own Ballon dâOr but won nothing with Liverpool barring some domestic medals. He clearly felt Liverpool were holding him back in his career â and was vocal about saying so â and the fans then took great pleasure in serenading him with âwhere were you in Istanbul?â. No such smugness will work with Alexander-Arnold; he will not miss out on Liverpoolâs finest hours because he was there.
The other factor is that Owen was a goalscorer. Continue to score goals and he was always going to get another chance to join a super-club. The fact that he ran down his contract and made himself cheaper was a kick in the teeth for Liverpool but, like with Harry Kane nearly 20 years later, goals open doors. Sometimes very expensive, gold-plated doors.
Alexander-Arnold is in an altogether different position. As a right-back, Real will never pay the ÂŁ100m-plus he would cost if he was under long-term contract. Realistically, he either joins Real for nothing now, or in another five or six years when he will either be free again or relatively cheap. And there are no guarantees that he will still be the most coveted right-back in the world into his 30s.
So the choice is stark and itâs not really between Liverpool and Real Madrid, even though it will be painted as such. And absolutely not about money, though others will cling to that tantalising concept. Itâs probably an entirely human choice between comfort and adventure, the kind which we all make several times throughout our lives.
Alexander-Arnold should listen to his family, his friends and all the different voices in his head that will probably tell a different story every day. But he should absolutely not listen to Michael Owen or the idiots who would have him âtarnishedâ. F*** âem.
