Liverpool only have themselves to blame if TAA quits for Real Madrid

They say loyalty is a diminishing entity in football and that is just as well because it doesn’t get you anywhere.

Take Scott McTominay’s case. The Manchester United midfielder has not been pushed out of Old Trafford this summer, but equally he knew he was no longer required.

So despite being at the club since he was five and being a stabilising influence during the rocky years of Jose Mourinho, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Erik ten Hag, he is now packing his bags for Naples.

At Arsenal it is the same. Anyone who has watched the club’s All or Nothing documentary will have noticed how deeply Emile Smith Rowe cares for the team he joined when he was 10.

Now 24, he has come through the ranks, made 80 Premier League appearances and played for England. But Smith Rowe is now a Fulham player, sold this summer by manager Mikel Arteta because he is not deemed quite good enough any more.

All of which brings us to the strange and confusing subject of Trent Alexander-Arnold at Liverpool, a player who — whether he intended it to be this way or otherwise — finds himself in a position of unusual liberty at Anfield.

Strangely for a player of his talent and marketability, Alexander-Arnold has only a year left on his Liverpool contract. Those of us who love watching him play and appreciate what he brings to the Premier League hope he signs a new one soon and Liverpool also still hope this will happen.

Nevertheless, if an apparent impasse with his one and only club continues it will not be long before, in January, he is contractually allowed to start speaking to other clubs about a free transfer.

Certainly something doesn’t seem right. Questions about the contract are not encouraged or entertained at press conferences.

When former player Jamie Carragher did ask new manager Arne Slot about it during a Sky Sports interview last weekend, the answer he got didn’t take us anywhere. The next day, after being substituted with the game against Brentford already won, Alexander-Arnold sat in the dugout with a face like thunder.

Slot sought to explain his clear rationale but was brushed off. It was a moment that seemed to tell us much about the confusion surrounding a player who has previously said he wants to be the next Liverpool captain.

What happens now will depend largely on what Alexander-Arnold wants. He holds the cards. Liverpool should have tied him down to a new contract last summer. That would have ensured that if one of the most talented academy products they have ever developed wished to leave, he would do so on their terms.

Nobody outside Anfield knows why that didn’t happen, but it didn’t and it’s highly unusual. Alexander-Arnold can now sign whatever contract is placed in front of him, or take his pick of Europe’s top clubs next summer.

What he should know at this point is that he is at liberty to put himself first. He has earned the right to walk if he wishes.

Money will sit at the root of much of the conversation, of course. Liverpool do not pay quite the same wages of some rival clubs and although it is sometimes hard to understand why, say, £150,000 a week just can’t be enough, that’s not the way it works.

Players sit in dressing rooms and talk about money all the time, particularly on international duty. So Alexander-Arnold will know what, for example, Kyle Walker earns at Manchester City and how much Harry Maguire takes home from United. Or at least, he will think he does.

All of this plays into a footballer’s sense of self-worth and appreciation. For right or for wrong, it’s deeply important to them and if they feel they are not being ‘looked after’ properly it can eat at their brains like a worm.

Alexander-Arnold has earned his passage to the top table. His development has been extraordinary, from the kid who used to have anger issues to the one hanging on for dear life in his first Champions League semi-final in Rome in 2018.

And now on to this, perhaps one of the most perfectly built and exquisitely programmed footballers in the modern game.

The truth is that every big club in Europe will be watching this saga unfold and so they should.

The most obvious link has been with Real Madrid. Alexander- Arnold has a close friendship with Real’s English Galactico Jude Bellingham and would be a perfect fit for the club and, indeed, the league. La Liga is not Italy’s Serie A. Italy is now where Premier League players go when they have not quite made the grade at big clubs over here, such as Chris Smalling, Tammy Abraham and Romelu Lukaku.

Spain is not that. Spain’s football landscape would offer Alexander-Arnold the opportunity to take his football and his profile to the next level. David Beckham, Steve McManaman, Michael Owen and, going further back, Gary Lineker certainly didn’t regret it.

The truth is that Alexander- Arnold has won everything he can win at Liverpool. The club has a new manager and transition is upon it. Mo Salah and Virgil van Dijk also have contracts that are running down.

Trent is 26 next month. His peak years are here. If he wishes to spend them at Liverpool, a deal will follow.

But if he is not sure, if he doesn’t put much store in being a one-club man and thinks he would like to see a different side of things, then the truth is that the time is probably now.

Rooney's flying the flag for Brits

We have discussed here this week the lack of British players in the Premier League and what is equally noticeable is the way the make up of our management community is changing.

Among the names managing in the Championship are Regis Le Bris (Sunderland), Carlos Corberan (West Brom), Daniel Farke (Leeds), Tim Walter (Hull), Danny Rohl (Sheffield Wednesday), Marti Cifuentes (QPR), Johannes Hoff Thorup (Norwich) and Erol Bulut (Cardiff).

The managerial pathway is fraught with danger.

Managers in the EFL are sacked with extraordinary haste. One consequence is that most players reaching the end of their lucrative careers in our top division feel it’s not for them.

This is just one of the many reasons I hope Wayne Rooney succeeds at Plymouth. After the mixed efforts of Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard, someone needs to show everybody else that it really can be done.

An astonishing appetite for football

Just days after a 4-0 humbling at Tottenham and the argy bargy between fans and players at Euston that followed, Everton still managed to attract 37,000 supporters for their Carabao Cup game against Doncaster at Goodison Park.

There were some admirable ticket concessions at play, while some supporters are determined to wring every last drop out of the last season at their famous old stadium.

Still, there are times when the English public’s demand and enthusiasm for football simply astonishes me.

Howe is not happy

Eddie Howe is not a man generally prone to self-pity or proclamations of discontent.

Yet the Newcastle manager is not happy and is quite comfortable with the fact that people know about it.

It’s a dangerous combination in football and one that usually ends with the man concerned driving out of the car park.

Howe needs his sporting director Paul Mitchell to get his top transfer target Marc Guehi through the door before the transfer window closes on Friday night.

After that he needs to get some more results similar to Wednesday’s cup win at Nottingham Forest. If both don’t come to pass, then we know how this plays out.