Trent Alexander-Arnold Liverpool 2024-25
© IMAGO - Trent Alexander-Arnold Liverpool 2024-25
Trent Alexander-Arnold is in the midst of a crisis just a couple of months on from signing for Real Madrid.
Los Blancos paid £8.4m to release the 26-year-old from his Liverpool contract one month early. Xabi Alonso wanted Alexander-Arnold on board for the FIFA Club World Cup but Madrid suffered a heavy semi-final defeat to Paris Saint-Germain.
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Trent was missing from the lineup for that match due to a minor injury - an absence which raised eyebrows immediately in the Madrid media.
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The England international’s Madrid career has gone south from there with it being reported that Alonso was lying awake at nightowing to the player’s lack of defensive nous.
Trent dropped by Xabi Alonso
He managed to start the first game of the LaLiga season - but only lasted 67 minutes against Osasuna before being hauled off. The right-back gave the ball away 15 times in little over an hour - prompting Alonso to restore Dani Carvajal to the team.
Given the Spain international is 33 and coming off the back of a severe ACL injury, it was initially expected he would play back-up to Trent for the season ahead.
But that situation has been immediately turned on its head with Carvajal getting the starting shirt – and captain’s armband on matchday two.
Trent was given three minutes - plus stoppage time - against Oviedo and afterwards it was confirmed that his main role this season will be to help keep Carvajal fitfor the most important games.
Trent's England career in jeopardy
And now his international career has been DERAILED.
Thomas Tuchel is not convinced by Trent - calling up Reece James, Tino Livramento and Djed Spence as his right-back options for the forthcoming World Cup qualification matches against Andorra and Serbia.
It follows a humiliating camp in June when Curtis Jones was picked at right-back ahead of him for the game against Andorra and he didn’t even get on the field for a defeat to Senegal in Nottingham.
“There is no doubt I am a big fan of Trent and Jack Grealish,” Tuchel said at this week’s press conference.
"Big players and big personalities, always in the mix. I know both are desperate but in this camp we decided for Reece James and [Tino] Livramento in Trent's position, and in Jack's position Marcus Rashford and Eberechi Eze, simply for competition."
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Brutal time for TAA
Tuchel can be added to the list of managers including Arne Slot and Alonso who do not believe that Trent is up to it defensively.
“If he wants to have this impact in the English national team then he has to take the defensive part very, very seriously,” he said in June.
It’s proving to be a brutal few months for Alexander-Arnold - who turned his back on Liverpool for the bright lights of the Bernabeu.
He’s already lost his starting place at club level and now has a battle on his hands to ensure his 2026 World Cup dream doesn’t go up in smoke.
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