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The Trent Alexander-Arnold to Real Madrid saga continues to churn out new information.
Reports that Trent Alexander-Arnold is edging closer to a move to Real Madrid dominated headlines this week, as his Liverpool future has been thrown further into doubt.
The right-back is rapidly approaching the end of his contract and the media is expecting him to leave his boyhood club this summer. While nothing has been confirmed between the two parties, the latest updates claim they are close to finalising an agreement.
Liverpool are ready to return to Premier League action, with full focus on lifting the trophy at the end of the season. However, Real Madrid are looking to push through an earlier transfer, as they want to sign Alexander-Arnold before his contract expires.
Real Madrid want to sign Alexander-Arnold earlier
According to Mailsport, Los Blancos are ‘exploring’ whether they can bring forward a move for the defender so he can feature in their Club World Cup run in June. The tournament will get underway three weeks after the regular season ends, with Madrid taking on Al-Hilal on June 18th.
This is almost two weeks before Alexander-Arnold’s terms expire with Liverpool but Madrid are hoping to convince the Reds to release him early. This request will naturally not come for free and the Spanish giants will need to pay up if they want to sign him early.
Real Madrid attempted to sign Alexander-Arnold during the winter, approaching Liverpool with an offer before the transfer window opened in January. They were willing to pay £20 million at the time to sign the 26-year-old at the start of the year.
Gary Neville’s warning shot for Alexander-Arnold
While there is still yet to be any official announcement that Alexander-Arnold is moving to Real Madrid, fans and pundits are discussing the situation with the assumption he will indeed sign for the La Liga giants.
Speaking on the latest episode of the Stick to Football podcast, Gary Neville has thrown doubt on Alexander-Arnold’s role as a Madrid player. Discussing his potential move, the Sky Sports pundit suggested he may have a harder time banking regular minutes than many might expect.
Neville has stressed that Alexander-Arnold needs to get ‘more serious’ about his defending, or he risks losing out on a major role under Carlo Ancelotti.
“I think it will cause him a problem at Real Madrid because they have Federico Valverde, who is playing right-back currently, and Dani Carvajal when he's back. He's going to have some serious competition,” Neville said.
“The problem is that he's 32 and has had a bad injury – but for me, Carvajal is an all-round better full-back than Trent because of what he gives to the team. It's unbelievable what Valverde is doing for them at the moment, so he's going to have competition when he goes.
“But coming back to Trent, I said he needs to get more serious about his defending, and that was proven by the fact he couldn't get in the England team for many years, and to be fair, he gets subbed for Liverpool a lot. I've never known a right-back get subbed so many times in important periods of matches.”
In other news,Liverpool owners FSG could be set for $48 million windfall - courtesy of Everton owners The Friedkin Group