Our Liverpool correspondent Paul Gorst writes ahead of the first return to Anfield of Trent Alexander-Arnold following his contentious summer move to Real Madrid
Trent Alexander-Arnold will make his return to Anfield on Monday (Photo by Mateo Villalba Sanchez/Getty Images)
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Sometimes in football, timing is everything. So with the finale of the massively popular BBC series Traitors set to air just two days after Trent Alexander-Arnold's return to Liverpool this week, one mischievous bookmaker made sure a trick was not missed.
That a PR stunt is planned to coincide with the Anfield return of the new Real Madrid man is no real shock given the high-profile nature of his move to the Spanish capital over the summer and the depth of feeling the topic still holds on Merseyside.
Liverpool attempted to make Alexander-Arnold one of the highest-paid players in the Premier League during their efforts to negotiate a new contract and even with the promise of the captaincy after Virgil van Dijk's departure, the England international's mind was made up.
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A social media video designed to be published to announce his end-of-season intentions had been in the works for weeks before it aired online at 11am on Monday, May 5, alongside an interview with official club channels. It was a carefully choreographed execution of an announcement many had seen coming for months.
Open training at the AXA Centre on Monday afternoon saw a handful of Madrid-based media keen to gain further insight from the local-based reporters into what Alexander-Arnold's return to his home city means and it was a recurring theme in front of the TV cameras shortly before Arne Slot's players got to work at their Kirkby base.
For the player himself, he insists his comeback was inevitable, telling Amazon Prime in an interview recorded specifically for the game this week: "After the draw, Robbo (Andy Robertson), Mo (Salah) and Ibou (Ibrahima Konate) all messaged me, we were just laughing. It was destined for that fixture to come."
The last time Alexander-Arnold was on the Anfield turf, he was a newly-crowned Premier League champion, soaking up the celebrations on the pitch with his then colleagues as they marked the club's 20th title triumph on one of the most joyous afternoons in modern memory at the venue.
His swift comeback, however, will be more akin to his arrival as a second-half substitute against Arsenal in May, which came just days after he had confirmed his intentions to leave at the end of that term as a free agent.
His introduction for Conor Bradley led to a vociferous booing as unhappy supporters reacted to his inevitable defection to Madrid. It was a decision that led to division among the fanbase and something of a civil war raged for days on the back of it.
"Such targeting of Alexander-Arnold is a disgrace and pathetically childish," wrote the ECHO's Ian Doyle at the time, adding: "For the more seasoned Liverpool fans inside Anfield, it went against everything [that] supporting the club stands for." In The Guardian, the reaction was reported as "a public flogging" with "a sinister mafioso quality" to it.
The fallout led to many fans feeling as though they were being lectured to by those unconnected to Liverpool in the days that followed as pundits and analysts lined up to give their take on the jeering of the then 26-year-old.
If the incident was a regrettable one, it was a mere footnote in an otherwise spectacularly successful season for Slot and his team. But the immediate return of the right-back won't see similar levels of discord among the Anfield crowd on the night. The expected 'public flogging', rightly or wrongly, will be done in as close to a full agreement as is possible for a group of 60,000 people.
Even if there are many who legitimately respect Alexander-Arnold's decision and celebrate a 27-year-old local lad for exploring and expanding his horizons at another of world football's behemoths, the cold reality is the man who won six major honours for his boyhood club returns as a rival, at a club with whom there is little love lost given history in the European Cup. The lad who went to St Matthews School might have to take his medicine on the night.
"I’m not sure he’ll get a great reception to be honest with you, because of the manner that a lot of the fans believe that he left," says Emile Heskey, via Dream Vegas. "But what reception should he get? Well, he’s a Liverpool legend. He’s a local lad that’s come good.
"He’s lived every Scouse kid’s dream, hasn’t he? To go out and play for the team that you supported as a kid, in front of your family and all your mates. So, for that, he should be getting a great reception, but I doubt he will get one."
Toxteth-born Robbie Fowler adds: “It would be good to see him, I’m not sure he’ll get a very good reaction or ovation from the crowd. I think there’ll be a few pockets of fans who’ll certainly appreciate or the majority will appreciate what he did. But fundamentally he is not a Liverpool player. I hope he has a good game if he does play or he does come on, but I hope he loses.”
With a whopping 21 European Cups between the clubs, the return of Alexander-Arnold shouldn't dominate the agenda on Tuesday night, but its status as a fascinating subplot is inescapable.