Champions, Gunners and the curious case of Trent Alexander-Arnold
Liverpool 2 Arsenal 2, 11th May 2025
LIVERPOOL 2 (Gakpo 20, Díaz 21)
ARSENAL 2 (Martinelli 47, Merino 70)
Well we had all the fun of the Premier League fair yesterday at a home fit for Champions basking in the early May sunshine. The newly crowned Champions of England raced into a 2–0 lead via 87 seconds of pure footballing beauty before sweeping aside a lacklustre yet narky and snarky Arsenal team who finally decided to play football after the break when the Reds of Liverpool had seemingly believed their job was already done for the day. It was and it wasn’t, for today’s result mattered not a jot for either side in reality, but where the Reds were supreme for 45 minutes they simply didn’t start or compete in the second half, the pretenders to their crown, this season and next, clawed their way into a game they hadn’t participated in for 45 minutes, levelled matters at 2–2, were then reduced to 10 men, and with both teams having late chances to snatch an undeserved victory, all of this sunshine filled mayhem surrounded Trent Alexander-Arnold being booed at every turn.
Whatever your personal highlights from yesterday’s game, today’s tabloid headlines and tomorrow’s fish and chip wrappers will concern Trent Alexander-Arnold and the dare I say England-like booing of the local lad from West Derby in Liverpool who, it needs repeating, HAS WON EVERY HONOUR THE ENGLISH AND EUROPEAN GAME HAS TO OFFER HIM IN THE RED SHIRT OF LIVERPOOL. Two Premier League titles, Champions League, UEFA Super Cup, FIFA World Club Cup, FA Cup, League Cup and Charity Shield: Alexander-Arnold has won it all in over 350 games in the Mighty Red shirt of Liverpool. In league with the vast majority of fellow Liverpool fans I wanted him to stay, bide his time for two more seasons, become the captain of his boyhood club, and follow the example set of fellow one club men and local boys who dreamed his dreams before him: Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher. But the lure of Los Blancos and Real Madrid came calling and like a thief in the night they have snagged their longed for prize possession of one of Europe’s most exciting and talented right-sided attacking wing backs. Real Madrid are a bunch of bastards (“bastards” is an obvious Spanish translation of “Galacticos”) and they’ll be hoisted by their own petards as always and Trent is leaving the Champions of England and winners of the Premier League for the runners-up in La Liga in Spain.
He was offered a contract at Liverpool. The Godfathers of Real Madrid clearly made him an offer he couldn’t refuse and the “Scouser in our Team” is (almost) no longer.
But booing one of our own, a local lad of 20 years service and whilst he’s still playing and wearing the Mighty Red shirt? All very unbecoming, depressingly shitty and so unlike the knowledgeable Reds fan base I grew up with. Dare I say it’s a sign of the times and a reflection of the spoiled, childlike reactions of the internet age? Players and Managers have come and gone and yet only occasionally painfully so. As Liverpool fans we’re incredibly lucky that the rule beats the exception hands down. Kevin Keegan, Michael Owen, Steve McManaman, Fernando Torres, Philippe Coutinho and Luis Suárez all departed under somewhat of a cloud and of wanting to explore the footballing world beyond the city boundaries of Liverpool. But Billy Liddell, Ian Callaghan, Roger Hunt, Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley, Kenny Dalglish, Alan Hansen, John Barnes, Ian Rush, Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher, Sami Hyypiä, Rafael Benítez and Jürgen Klopp (among many, many more) all left as Liverpool legends whilst also keenly aware that their career or lifetime of service ensures a heroes return to a club that is always, and forever will be, bigger than any one individual.
It’ll kill me to see Trent Alexander-Arnold in the white shirt of Real Madrid and far more than the hideous sight of seeing Michael Owen in a Manchester United shirt or Fernando Torres in Chelsea Blue. But the lad has made a career decision after 20 years service at his boyhood club where he made his own dreams come true and winning everything the game had to offer him along the way. Let’s just leave the booing for the unenlightened Neanderthals who follow England and other clubs eh?
On the pitch it was a cliche riddled “Game of Two Halves”. After Arsenal provided the Guard of Honour afforded the Champions they wish to be they were simply overrun by a rampant Liverpool breaking repeatedly at pace through their midfield typified by the Reds second goal from Luis Díaz. This rounded off a supreme couple of minutes of footballing excellence started by Andy Robertson and his change of play long ball to Cody Gakpo that led to his eagerness and tenacity to receive a quick throw-in from Dominik Szoboszlai and almost immediately, Cody Gakpo’s opening goal and mere seconds later, Díaz sliding in a second. Roles were reversed after the break as Gabriel Martinelli was left all alone to deftly flick a header past a stranded Alisson Becker in the Reds goal on 47 minutes before Mikel Merino was the only player alert enough to follow-in Martin Ødegaard’s thunderbolt of a shot that Alisson Becker saved magnificently onto his post, but not free of Merino’s diving header into a now empty net.
Merino went from hero to villain as he was sent off soon after before Ødegaard came within inches of winning the game at one end and Andy Robertson immediately scoring at the other, only for referee Anthony Taylor to rightly rule out this last gasp winning goal for an obvious foul by Ibrahima Konaté on Arsenal defender Myles Lewis-Skelly.
All in all and in the May sunshine of the Premier League fair, honours rightly remained even.
Arne’s Afterword
On what he made of the reaction Trent Alexander-Arnold received…
“I said to everyone that asked me that question that it is a privilege to live in Europe, where everybody can have his own opinion and everybody can express his own opinion. That is something we saw today as well. A few of them were not happy with him. I think all of them are not happy with him leaving the club. But a few of them showed it in a way that they booed him. And a few of them clapped”.
“The only thing I can say about it is that I owe it to the players and to the club and to the staff — for everyone who worked so hard for us to win a game of football — to try to do that. And if we are, after 70 minutes, 2–2 and Conor can’t continue and I have a world-class full-back on the bench, I bring him in. And I think it’s a big compliment for him because you can understand how mixed the emotions were in his head probably as well; that you bring in a performance like that tells you why I think, why everybody thinks, he is a world-class full-back. Because with him we were quite close to winning this game, and that’s what I owe to the players in the dressing room that work so hard every single day: to make decisions to try to win the game”.
Thanks for reading. I pen my thoughts on every Liverpool game and in recent seasons, with the addition of numerous pieces of retro writing on Reds games of the past, I’ve curated and created the following two self-published books:
"A final word from The Boss" - link to Amazon
"Chasing the Impossible and a Sword of Damocles" - link to Amazon
Whilst you’re here I may as well brag about the release of my trilogy of recently self-published books too. Beautiful covers eh! As the title(s) would suggest, this is my life at the movies or at least from 1980 to 2024, and in volume 1 you’ll find 80 spoiler free appraisals of movies from debut filmmakers, 91 of the very best films appraised with love and absent of spoilers from 1990–2024 in volume 2, and in volume 3 you’ll find career “specials” on Paul Thomas Anderson and Quentin Tarantino together with the very best of the rest and another 87 spoiler free film reviews from 2001–2024.
All available in hardback and paperback and here are some handy links:
"A Life at the Movies Vol.1" - link to Amazon
"A Life at the Movies Vol.2" - link to Amazon
"A Life at the Movies Vol.3" - link to Amazon
Haha nice review, it's good you are defending Trent. When real Madrid comes calling, it's very hard to say no.
On your view do you think Nunez is a flop?