The Trent Alexander-Arnold contract saga has been one of the most headache-inducing - and, of course, entertaining - storylines of Liverpool’s entire season so far.
The right-back is in the final year of his contract, alongside Mo Salah and Virgil van Dijk. But unlike his right-sided partner Salah, Alexander-Arnold has made little to no actual public comments on the matter.
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Fans maybe wish he would. They wish he’d come out and say, ‘look, I’d love to re-sign but these things take time!’.
But with Real Madrid circling, all the leverage is in Trent’s court. He does, unfortunately, have to weigh up all options and get the best possible deal for himself.
But that doesn’t mean he can’t have a bit of fun with it.
In an Instagram post earlier this week, Alexander-Arnold captioned an advert for the new Google Pixel phone with “Trust me to make the switch… to Google Pixel wink emoji”.
It was a harmless jab poking fun at the situation that, naturally, fans overreacted massively to.
“Not funny, sign the contract” commented @j_widlic on the post, speaking for fans all over the world.
Is Trent trying to tell Liverpool fans something?
Alexander-Arnold and his team could easily play this off as a comment on his play style. We all know Trent is a purveyor of the long ball - no one in the world touches him on this - and switching play is a trademark of his game.
But we’re not completely clueless. Trent’s team would know how this would read and had to know the fun they could have with hinting towards a switch over to sunny Spain. And they knew the attention it would get.
Some fans are actually reading it as a positive thing. @LFCdailyRed on Twitter wrote, “Absolutely yeah - wouldn’t be being light hearted about it if he was going to leave end of the season. It’s all good. They all sign”
Whilst we can understand the argument that he wouldn’t mock the fans, taking this as a surefire indication that he’s staying at the club is definitely a stretch.
It’s almost certainly just a bit of light-hearted fun at what is probably quite a demanding situation for Liverpool’s vice-captain.
One thing is for certain, though. No matter what happens this season, Liverpool fans will never forget it.
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