IAN HERBERT: The LIV-ARS game has become a lightning rod for society's anger

It is a time when Liverpool supporters should be walking on sunshine, free for the first time in 35 years to openly celebrate a league title on the streets of their city.

Instead, they are in a state of open warfare which was playing out on Monday in the comments sections of almost every report featuring the so-called 'Outcast of Anfield'.

For many of those contributing to these arguments, the booing of Trent Alexander-Arnold on Sunday was an infernal act, shaming the club's mystique and destroying the idea Liverpool is somehow different. For just as many, it was a justifiable response to an act of absolute betrayal by one of their own.

The arguments brought wild claim and counter-claim, on such issues as whether racism was at the root of the booing on Sunday. Debates raged about how many people on the Kop had punched each other that afternoon. Another extraordinary line of discussion. Fans told each other on one thread they were an 'embarrassment', a 'clown' and a 'wool' - Liverpool vernacular for those who are not from the city.

Anger about a local player leaving Merseyside is by no means new. The hurt and sting of such rejection is always felt acutely in Liverpool, a city where - for good reason - they feel it is them against the world.

When an 18-year-old Wayne Rooney signed for Manchester United in 2004, graffiti declaring him to be 'Judas', 'scum' and making threats on his life was daubed around Goodison. The boos rang out in only Rooney's second season amid rumours he was leaving.

Michael Owen was never forgiven for leaving for Real Madrid. Raheem Sterling agitated to leave after being signed to Liverpool's academy and was booed when collecting a young player of the year award. Steven Gerrard's shirt was burnt at the mere prospect of him going.

But the fury surrounding Alexander-Arnold's departure has seen anger amplified to new levels. An image of him at a charity event, tweeted as evidence he had been a force for good for his native city, unleashed vile abuse last week.

There has even been a debate over who is entitled to express a view in a controversy of many layers. Jamie Carragher has said those unaffiliated with Liverpool and the city simply wouldn't understand the 'emotion'.

The 'emotion' is easy to understand, actually. It's the same emotion that now swamps every corner of a sport which seems to have become a lightning rod for society's anger. The 90-minute arc of a match no longer sustains football's 24/7 ecosystem, which has been occupied by the debates raging around it.

These are fuelled by the furious social media machine, aggressive analysis and punditry. The debates, drowning in negativity, have turned the sport into a modern-day slanging match and made stadiums such angry places.

England fans boo black England players who miss penalties and throw bottles at Gareth Southgate. Anonymous fans issue death threats to referee Michael Oliver. West Ham fans boo Declan Rice. Sheffield Wednesday fans mock a child cancer victim.

We've travelled from the world of football hooliganism to a place where we could take our families, and now to this land of simmering anger.

Academics have tried to interpret why football is the angriest game and booing so much more prevalent than ever. Philosopher Julian Baggini says a football stadium gives you a licence for raw, unfiltered emotion: a 'suspension of decent behaviour' where stadiums 'draw out your exasperations'.

Sports psychologist Josephine Perry talks of a 'contagion effect', where people jeer because those around them are doing so.

For some, this frustration stems from a sense that their football clubs feel more remote places now; corporate machines making them feel increasingly insignificant and priced out.

Booing is the only way to make their voice heard. But others seem to take vicarious pleasure in becoming a part of the story.

The Alexander-Arnold controversy has become a form of reality TV show in which the opinionated become participants every bit as much as him. It's like voting people off a ballroom set or out of a jungle. In the modern world, everyone wants to press the red button, tweet a verdict, vote, have a say.

This simmering anger has the propensity to damage Liverpool and the Premier League's image. Will young players look at the manner of Alexander-Arnold's exit and think twice? Dominik Szoboszlai looked stunned.

The nuanced truth is that Alexander-Arnold had for a long time felt his contract situation was being parked by Liverpool. In the summer of 2023, two years on from his most recent new deal and when talks were expected, he would probably have signed an extension. But with Jurgen Klopp considering his own future and Liverpool going through a number of sporting directors, the situation was allowed to drift.

He grew twitchy and everything remained unclear as Klopp announced his decision to leave, long before a successor was lined up. By the time sporting director Richard Hughes arrived last summer, he was already aware of other options and wanted to give thought to Madrid's interest.

Alexander-Arnold, we are told, knew the booing was probably coming, which poses the question of whether this form of protest will continue to carry much weight if it becomes so inevitable and commonplace.

As one commentator put it: 'If everyone gets booed, no one gets booed, because it becomes white noise that everyone tunes out. And then, far from having a voice, fans have none at all.'

The digital debate will turn to the reception Alexander-Arnold will get after his last Liverpool game against Crystal Palace, a week on Sunday, though it is immaterial. He has gone.

There have been no winners.

Nobody is left feeling good about Sunday. The golden glow of a 20th Premier League title wasn't meant to be like this.