Here is why Trent Alexander-Arnold should join Real Madrid this summer: because he can.
It really is no more complicated than that. If life gives you lemons, make lemonade. If it gives you the opportunity to test your brilliance at the most special football club in the world, the one with the most storied history and highest expectations, just get on the plane. There are many proud Liverpudlians who are perplexed by Alexander-Arnold’s willingness to turn his back on the club he has loved since first kicking a ball but, to a man, they are invariably the ones who never got an offer from Real.
Jamie Carragher was a fabulous player, among the best of his generation — but he wasn’t Real Madrid fabulous. He stayed loyal to Liverpool all his life because that was as great as his career could get. This is not to decry his capabilities. When he talks football on Champions League nights he does so as an equal. As a winner of club football’s biggest prize, a leader and legend in the red shirt. Yet, unless it is the best kept secret, he did not reject the Bernabéu. Few do. And not all recruits make a success of it, either. Whatever barbs are aimed at Alexander-Arnold he cannot be accused of staying in his comfort zone. That would involve remaining at Liverpool.
Sorry, but it’s true. A vanishingly small number of British players have been given this chance, which is why Alexander-Arnold has to take it. Just to see. How good am I? Am I Gareth Bale good, Steve McManaman good? Could I be the man of the match in a Champions League final; could I score the goal of the game; can I do for Kylian Mbappé next season what I did for Mo Salah in this? His decision is no slight on Liverpool. It’s not as if he’s leaving for just anyone. As a free agent this summer, a lot of clubs could have made Alexander-Arnold very rich but it’s not as if he’s signing for Manchester City. In most other circumstances, he would have stayed at Anfield.
Yet Real Madrid are different. When they came for Cristiano Ronaldo — very publicly, as always, because their transfer game is dirty — Sir Alex Ferguson contemptuously announced he wouldn’t sell them a virus, let alone his best player. But it was bravado. Ferguson knew Ronaldo’s life’s ambition was to join Real and, in private, would persuade the player to give him one more season before leaving with his blessing.
Daniel Levy drove hard bargains over Bale and Luka Modric but sold because he knew Tottenham Hotspur couldn’t hold out indefinitely. The wealth of Qatar wasn’t enough for Paris Saint-Germain to cling on to Mbappé. And last summer, no English club seriously pursued Jude Bellingham once it was known Madrid were in — because the contest was over.
The same was true this season as January approached and it became plain Alexander-Arnold had six months left and Castilian interest. The only surprise is that word of an impending deal is still news. All that seems undecided is whether Madrid will pay a little forfeit to negotiate his release in time for the Club World Cup. It won’t be much. Liverpool, so often the shrewdest in the transfer market, have been comprehensively outmanoeuvred.
That is, in part, where the resentment lies. Not in the transfer itself, but the fact Alexander-Arnold will leave for nothing. Yet is that so wrong? He hasn’t demanded a transfer, hasn’t made a fuss, hasn’t let his performance levels dip. He has been an absolutely vital part of what is likely to be only the second title for Liverpool in the Premier League era. And then he shakes hands and slips out the door, leaving behind a set of numbers close to unrivalled. Let’s start with 64, the most assists by a defender in the history of the Premier League; 2,500 passes into the box; 400 switches of play from right to left, more than twice that of any other player. Since Alexander-Arnold made his league debut only Kevin De Bruyne has created more chances, and only De Bruyne, Salah and Son Heung-min have more assists. And this is from right back. So fair exchange, and no robbery. He has fulfilled his end, just as Liverpool have theirs — giving him the platform to win every honour and represent his country, too.
McManaman left for nothing as well, yet the conversation around his move seemed more realistic. Now it is said he lacks the love reserved for Anfield contemporaries but, at the time, it was accepted widely that any player given the same chance would have made his choice. When he was man of the match in the 2000 Champions League final, there was a frisson of national pride. He was a trailblazer.
Yet few followed his path. Michael Owen, David Beckham, Bale, Jonathan Woodgate, Bellingham. Good and bad times for all. Yet none regret the experience, none regret taking it on. They had to. It’s Real Madrid. Nothing more need be said.
Everton an England defender’s graveyard? Since when?
If playing for Everton was a hindrance to an England career, Jordan Pickford would have left long ago. So if Jarrad Branthwaite, or his advisers, want out, he’s going to have to come up with a better excuse than blaming Thomas Tuchel.
Equally, if Branthwaite seeks a manager capable of turning out England international defenders, look no further than David Moyes. Phil Jagielka, Leighton Baines, Joleon Lescott, Phil Neville and Jack Rodwell all got the call on his watch, as did Leon Osman, Ross Barkley, Wayne Rooney and Andy Johnson in other positions. Everton is not the international graveyard being painted.
It will have hurt Branthwaite to be ignored — particularly as Tuchel favours a left and right-footed central defensive combination and preferred Dan Burn where Branthwaite could have been — but the issue looks to be with the player, not his club. Maybe he’s just not that into him. After all, Harry Maguire has been a regular at Manchester United — who wanted Branthwaite in the summer — and it didn’t do him much good. Burn’s selection suggests Tuchel has not arrived with preconceptions.
He’s in a hurry, though, no doubt of that — so his players may have decisions to make. Jack Grealish needs games and Aaron Ramsdale and Liam Delap cannot afford to slip into the Championship with Southampton and Ipswich Town.
Reece James’s position, however, is more nuanced. Does it matter that his head coach, Enzo Maresca, no longer appears to see him as a right back? It shouldn’t. Now at long last recovered from recurrent hamstring issues James is playing midfield for Chelsea — or rather he would if Maresca used him ahead of Enzo Fernández, Moisés Caicedo or Roméo Lavia when fit. Some will argue this means, ultimately, he cannot be a full back for England.
Yet who is the England manager, if that is the case? What is the point in employing Tuchel if Maresca’s preferences preside? Take Kalvin Phillips. At Leeds United, Phillips became one of the stalwarts of Gareth Southgate’s England team. He moved to Manchester City and couldn’t get a game, primarily because he was understudy to Rodri, by common agreement the world’s best in his position. So even if Phillips was the world’s second-best — which he wasn’t, but that’s not the point — it wouldn’t have mattered because he still couldn’t get in City’s team. If Southgate couldn’t then pick him, Pep Guardiola is the England manager.
So even if James is now Chelsea’s reserve central midfielder, rather than their first-choice right back it shouldn’t affect his England chances. Whether he is happy with that, however, is another matter entirely.
Bradley deserves his chance
With the worst-kept secret in football now in the open, attention turns to the right-back position at Liverpool next season. It is reported negotiations have opened with Jeremie Frimpong, of Bayer Leverkusen, while Sergiño Dest at PSV Eindhoven and Feyenoord’s Lutsharel Geertruida will also be well known to Arne Slot.
Yet the most obvious promotion remains Conor Bradley, who has been part of Liverpool development programmes in Northern Ireland since the age of nine. Bradley’s impact in his early appearances was such that there was even talk he could usurp, rather than succeed, Trent Alexander-Arnold. Liverpool should be sourcing his understudy rather than Alexander-Arnold’s replacement and if they are not, perhaps Bradley might contemplate his future too.
The same happened to the goalkeeper Caoimhín Kelleher, who went from being Alisson’s heir, to the club’s No 3 after the purchase of Giorgi Mamardashvili from Valencia, who will arrive this summer. Kelleher has now decided his future lies elsewhere. Bradley will not be so hasty, but he cannot wait indefinitely for the opportunity he deserves.
Houston? We have a problem
“There are some classic tunes coming out of the England dressing room,” reported the BBC’s Gary Flintoff before the match with Latvia. “I’ve just heard Africa by Toto followed by Whitney Houston’s I Wanna Dance with Somebody.” Having christened Jordan Henderson the team’s Bez because of his apparent responsibility for positivity, mood and vibes, may I humbly suggest he takes his maracas out of his ears and gets hold of that turntable. Bez — no wonder England are turning up half asleep. Toto? Whitney Houston? You’re really twisting my melons, man.
The cost of running on empty
It would have cost Chelsea in the region of £200,000 to open Stamford Bridge for their women’s Champions League game with Manchester City on Thursday. The crowd was 10,769.
With tickets priced between £8 and £25, it is very possible the event lost money. That is why the biggest stadiums aren’t always accessed for women’s games. And yet the Pitchgate controversy around Real Madrid’s use of the inferior Alfredo Di Stéfano Stadium for their match with Arsenal — while the newly rebuilt Bernabéu stayed dark — rumbles on.
“It’s just not acceptable to play on bad pitches,” Chelsea’s manager, Sonia Bompastor, said. “In the women’s game we should have the best pitches possible. When they have such a good stadium they should take some responsibility for having the women’s team play in the big stadium in Madrid. Uefa should impose to the clubs, especially when it’s an international break for the men’s side and the big stadium is available. I know it costs money, but it you want to help women’s football you need to make those decisions.”
This is economic illiteracy. If that is the cost of Stamford Bridge, imagine opening the 81,000 capacity Bernabéu for a match that attracted little more than 3,000? Men’s Champions League games in Madrid measure revenue in tens of millions. There are 200 premium seats costing €50,000 (£41,000) each, between €800 and €2,000 for selivats in VIP areas and busy club shops stay open until midnight. None of this is feasible for a women’s Champions League game, sadly.
Then there are the logistical issues. Matches at any major stadium involve negotiations with the locals — residents, councils, police — over security and road closures. Only so much inconvenience is permitted, for a limited number of games each season.
Even if only a section of the ground is open, thereby reducing costs, clubs are understandably reluctant to use up valuable permissions on poor attendances. So if Uefa started imposing wildly expensive, loss-making stipulations on member clubs what would happen? The demise of European competition for some. Real Madrid might choose to wear it, but not all clubs. Far from helping, as Bompastor suggests, it could prove ruinous.
Ashworth’s return an admission FA has let our coaches down, again
Dan Ashworth resigned from his role as the Football Association’s director of elite development in 2018, so it isn’t his fault that six years later the organisation ended up with a foreign coach of England. They had plenty of time to prepare for Gareth Southgate’s departure and instead let English coaches down. No wonder Ashworth has been brought back to oversee, among other projects, the development of more top-level managers and coaches here. The only surprise is that his successor, John McDermott, keeps his job.
The FA is at least playing to Ashworth’s strengths as a facilitator. He will steer redevelopment plans at St George’s Park and consider the men’s, women’s and age-group teams too. Manchester United wanted a judge, a scout, a man who could name names when there was money to be spent. That is not Ashworth’s forte. At least, with his return, the FA is admitting it messed up, and it is a failure that a football nation of such wealth and history cannot, for the third time, find an England manager from within its system. Mark Bullingham will hide behind any success Thomas Tuchel brings but here is confirmation that, even in victory, is defeat.
Reading on long road to ruin
Increasingly, it is feared that Reading will not last the season. Dai Yongge is now disqualified from running a football club — as he should have been the moment he failed to pay the wages on time two years ago — and the deadline for the club to be sold is April 5. There are two potential buyers but also a worry that Yongge’s intransigence could force the club into administration.
His Belgian concern, KSV Roeselare, went to the wall with debts of just £17,000.
Instead of trying to siphon money from the Premier League to prop up voodoo economic strategies below, maybe the EFL chairman Rick Parry should have devoted more time to his own mess of a rulebook. Specifically, lines that say owners can be disqualified and ordered to sell, while not making provision for the compulsory capture of their shares before drama becomes crisis. Reading should have been out of Yongge’s hands and in the control of EFL-appointed administrators long ago. It’s not like this calamity hasn’t been coming.
No quick fix for Kane-Jude link
One of England’s biggest failings at the 2024 European Championship concerned the relationship between Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham. Against Denmark, the pair found each other once — Kane passing to Bellingham. Next match, with Slovenia, Bellingham passed to Kane. This is one of the issues it is argued Thomas Tuchel has fixed. Indeed, productivity between the pair is up by as much as 200 per cent. So against Albania, they found each other twice, and against Latvia, three times. Hardly job done, though, is it?
Air miles all part of the job
Outrage at the PFA no doubt, but news that two Manchester United players might travel a combined 75,000 miles to meet their commitments this summer elicits little more than a shrug. Alejandro Garnacho and Manuel Ugarte may be involved in friendlies in Hong Kong and Malaysia when the season ends, and then must fly to South America to play for Argentina and Uruguay, respectively. They will have to return to Manchester, with a commitment in Stockholm on July 19, before touring America. It is, of course, a ridiculous, exhausting and potentially harmful schedule.
And, as such, completely anticipated. Ugarte was an established member of Uruguay’s national team long before signing for United. Equally, he will have known he was joining a modern, elite club making frequent trips to distant continents. The same goes for Garnacho, who chose Argentina having played age-group football for Spain, his country of birth. This is very much a modern problem, caused by modern decisions, and most driven by finance.
Where the smart money goes
This column does not encourage uninformed betting. So it offers no view that England, who have never progressed beyond the quarter-finals of a tournament outside Europe, are 7-1 to win the next World Cup. Interest in the Argentina team who beat Brazil 4-1 without some bloke called Lionel Messi and are 10-1 in places, is therefore strictly a matter for you.
