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There is a game at which Trent Alexander-Arnold is quite probably the best player in the world… but that game may not be football as we know it.
And that’s the problem with Trent. There’s always a ‘but’.
Whether it’s his problem or ours we are about to find out.
Real Madrid don’t really do ‘buts’ when it comes to full-backs. They didn’t sign the likes of Marcelo, Michel Salgado and Roberto Carlos to play full-back football as we knew it. Real like to think they have their own version of the beautiful game.
Just to be clear, Alexander-Arnold is very good at football as we know it. Good enough for Real. If he is indeed on his way to one of those tickertape Bernabeu unveilings, he won’t have any problems with the keepy-uppies and rainbow flicks. When I’m in need of someone to play Crossbar Challenge for my life, he’ll be my first call.
It seems to me that Trent’s whole career to this point has been played in the shadow of that word ‘but’. Whatever he does appears to be tempered by whatever he doesn’t. Everything he’s achieved has been qualified by what he hasn’t. Maybe it’s time for a change of scenery.
Football is a low-scoring sport. As such, it examines individual mistakes on the same microscope slide that it analyses individual brilliance. One cancels out the other and so the same value is placed on a player that is capable of both as one that contributes neither.
Because it’s a team sport, structure is added to try to minimise the mistakes and negate the brilliance. Any and every individual needs to find their place in the team structure. But… Trent isn’t any individual.
Some actors are born to play Hamlet, some singers are just right for ‘My Way’, some footballers are a perfect match for Real Madrid. The leaving of Liverpool will be a move away from Trent’s native home to what might just be his spiritual home. The Madridistas will love his strengths too dreamily to worry too much about his weaknesses.
Comparing Trent to a young nun in ‘The Sound of Music’ might appear to be a bit of a stretch but there’s always been an element of ‘How do you solve a problem like Maria?’ in any discussion of his playing position. Like Julie Andrews in the movie, he’s somehow not cut out for the monastic life of a right-back.
‘How do you keep a wave upon the sand?’
Various solutions have been tried to the point that he became a starter at the heart of England’s midfield at Euro 24. Like restless research scientists, coaches have poked and prodded at his talents in an attempt to create a cloned hybrid. Football’s Dolly the Sheep. A 3-headed mutant midfield player who can defend, attack and cheerlead the crowd all at the same time.
Trent has cut a confused figure at times. The search for the very best use of his unique skillset has occasionally left him looking lost. Trapped by his own contradictions. How can a player with the vision of an eagle not see an opponent making a run in behind him? Wasted on the wing but crowded in the centre. A difference-maker with the ball at his feet but a liability with the ball at an opponent’s feet. But, but, but!
Of Liverpool’s trinity of contract issues, he should be the one the club and the fans most want to keep. He’s much younger than Mohamed Salah or Virgil van Dijk, he’s the local hero that Koppites can identify with, he’s a one-off, he’s one of their own. But, but, but… why do I get the feeling that he seems the most dispensable? Does Trent get that feeling too?
Weirdly, both of Liverpool’s long-running, game-changing full-backs have come under increasing scrutiny in a season when they have roared clear of the Premier League pack. For what it’s worth, I thought they each stood up to the bubbling challenge that the PSG wide boys posed better than I feared they would. Trent is 26 and has already played in 3 Champions League finals at right-back. Let’s not pretend he can’t defend. But, but, but!
It is only because he can do so much more than defend that we have come to expect and demand ever more from him. He has created his own monster. A fact of life at Real Madrid is that you don’t need to defend as often as you do in a more competitive league like ours and that might release Trent to find a new balance in the responsibilities of his job in a more organic and forgivable way.
He has obviously struck up a brotherly rapport with Jude Bellingham that will help his acclimatisation on all levels. His CV is arguably more impressive than the one with which Jude arrived in Spain last season. Trent’s passing penetration and range might just be better than Bellingham’s. I don’t know either of them but I get the sense that his air of self-worth is not far behind his mate’s. They’ve got the world at their feted feet. But, but, but!
The team-mate that Trent maybe has the most to learn from is the one he’s been bought to succeed. Dani Carvajal will not welcome news of Trent’s imminent arrival quite as joyously as the rest of Madrid as he targets a return from an October ACL injury before the season ends. He’s 33 and knows the script that’s been written for him from here. I’ve had the same one handed to me. There’s no part in it for you. It doesn’t mean you go quietly.
Carvajal has not only won an unbeatable 6 Champions League medals, he has been fiercely impassable in those 6 finals. If the game has become more testing for him with the passing of years, he has dug ever deeper to pass each test. He ground Luis Diaz down in the final in Paris 3 years ago. Carvajal knew too much, cared too much, wanted too much to go home with a loser’s medal. Follow that.
Carlo Ancelotti is probably the best manager of genius that modern football has seen. He indulges and encourages the gifted but strikes a demanding contract with them to return his faith with results. Carlito is not averse to calling out his headliners when they don’t put in a shift for him. Trent is moving in with serial winners. He’ll have to prove himself all over again to Ancelotti, Carvajal and the rest.
The big difference in climate in Madrid will not be the number on his air conditioning, it will be a greater warmth for and a more temperate attitude towards his footballing abilities. What he can do, not what he can’t. Trent Alexander-Arnold will find his place alongside Mbappe, Vinicius and Rodrygo in the cooling knowledge that he can make a football sit up and beg with any of them.
But what?