“A penny for Trent Alexander Arnold’s thoughts,” said Jamie Carragher in a celebratory appreciation of Liverpool’s transfer window in The Daily Telegraph.
Carragher was reflecting on the paradigm shift at Anfield that has seen Liverpool move on from astute operators around the fringes of the Premier League’s big-money transfer market to the vanguard.
Alexander-Arnold’s move to Madrid reflects the enduring brand power of Real and, for that matter, Barcelona.
Yet, as the record spend this summer demonstrates, the Premier League is the engine of the world game, and Liverpool are setting the agenda as they did back in the Eighties.
Real Madrid are still the benchmark, of course, but without the foundational economic buttress enjoyed by the Premier League, the meaning of Madrid’s supremacy in La Liga is downgraded.
Madrid derive their principal brand strength from the Champions League, but even that might be shifting following Liverpool’s onslaught.
pic.twitter.com/0XrJGLMvqv
— Real Madrid C.F. (@realmadriden) September 1, 2025It could be that in following the galactico trail to Madrid, Alexander-Arnold has made an epic miscalculation.
Had he stayed put instead of falling for the mythical allure of Kylian Mbappe, Vinicius Junior, Jude Bellingham et al., he would have been arguably in a better team and loved.
The early phase of the Madrid experience has been bumpy at best. That polished reception in practised Spanish has not spared him on the pitch, where he is scrapping for recognition against an old-school right-back, Dani Carvajal, who does the mechanics of defending better than he.
The pass for Mbappe’s offside goal against Mallorca at the weekend was highlight-reel stuff, but the wider substance and traction he had at Liverpool is not there yet, and might never be.
And because of La Liga’s inferior economic base, Madrid is not the beating heart of the club game anymore, despite its history. The action is all on the Mersey.
La Liga’s secondary status makes Madrid an outlier as the game’s premier revenue drivers.
Though they topped the Deloitte Football Money League with a whopping £900m, the spread of wealth in the Premier League blows away the rest of the world, with the Big Six – Manchester City, Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham and Chelsea – occupying six of the top ten slots. Of the top 30 richest clubs by revenue, 14 are English.
In his desire to become a Real Madrid player, you wonder how much thought Alexander-Arnold gave to the World Cup.
Alexander-Arnold’s place in Thomas Tuchel’s World Cup squad is far from a given (Photo: Getty)He was a notable absentee from Thomas Tuchel’s first England squad of the season and with only two more international windows this year in October and November, the opportunities to change minds are shrinking.
The return of Carvajal following nine months recovering from knee surgery has already impacted Alexander-Arnold’s opportunities at Madrid to a degree.
Despite his elite passing and flair, Alexander-Arnold has never quite nailed down his international place.
His hybrid qualities and versatility make it harder for the national coach to commit to a position.
Tuchel is already narrowing his options in pursuit of consistency, leaving Alexander-Arnold trapped in a sort of nether land, neither right-back nor right-half.
Had he stayed at Anfield, Carragher speculates that the Liverpool captaincy would have been his once Virgil van Dijk steps down.
The myth of the fabled Madrid is easily eroded by the material reality of not starting games, should that become his experience, as it did for a prior Liverpool pin-up.
What appeared the dream move when Michael Owen ditched Anfield for the Bernabeu in 2004 became something else entirely on the bench.
Michael Owen’s spell in Spain was brief and frustrating (Photo: Getty)He was back in the Premier League at Newcastle within a year, his reputation indelibly tarnished, his Liverpool legacy torched.
With his replacement, Jeremie Frimpong, injured, the redeployed Dominik Szoboszlai stepped out of Alexander-Arnold’s old right-back slot to rifle the winner against Arsenal direct from a free-kick.
It was just the kind of contribution that cements a legend, Szoboszlai ascending the ladder of Anfield heroes by the match.
This was once the territory of Alexander-Arnold, a Scouse scion worshipped for his Liverpool roots and idolised for his ability to deliver moments of genuine theatre.
That’s all gone now, traded for a galactico experience that he could have had, it turns out, had he stayed at home.
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