Come in No. 66. Your time is up.

Made with Sora and Canva: Trent last touch of the This is Anfield Sign.

I’ve been on this planet for half a century now, almost, and a big part of that, as you can guess, is following Liverpool Football Club.

I heard the news today that Trent Alexander-Arnold has officially announced that he’s leaving the club, with a 99.9999999% recurring chance his next club is going to be Real Madrid.

As a middle-aged man, of, I'd like to think, at least a reasonable level of emotional intelligence, you’d think that the professional decisions of a man I’ve never met would have little effect on me. So why do I feel a sense of hurt and betrayal? I can’t pretend I’m not feeling that, and I can’t pretend to understand others that don’t.

Breaking it down, what’s happening is that a 26-year-old man, who has achieved more than he ever could have dreamed of at his current place of employment, is opting to take on a different challenge, with a higher salary, at a different company, in a different country with some of the best in his field, at least on paper. On top of which, he gets a very healthy cheque just for joining the company.

So how can I begrudge that? Because I do. And what I’ve come up with is, it’s football and the rules are different. In any other walk of life this move would make a lot of sense, and unanimously, every man, woman, child and their dog would wish him well.

But this isn’t every other walk of life. So what is actually happening, and why does it feel like being stabbed in the back?

Well, a local footballer coming into the absolute prime years of his footballing career who professes to love the club he’s been at for the last 20 years, having amassed a reasonable trophy haul, the love of millions of fans across the globe, a tidy sum of money and at the time of writing, legendary status - has decided that his ambitions can’t be fulfilled at this club.

Wait, hold on.

The current Premier League champions, and the team that finished the top of the Champions League table beating his likely suitors in the process, and only being knocked out by arguably the second-best team in the competition, and possible eventual winners on penalties, with no signings of any note, is not a place where he can fulfil his dreams?

That feels like a kick in the teeth to everyone who follows Liverpool, all those who invest their time, energy and emotion in following the club, whether that’s from the Kop, or getting up at 4am in Thailand to catch the Reds on TV.

There’s an argument that has been proposed to me recently that he’s going to Spain where the señoritas are gorgeous, the Sangria flows, and the lifestyle and weather is levels above what he can experience in Liverpool.

I don’t buy it! Again, in any other profession these could be valid reasons to change jobs, but not in one where your daily life sacrifices most of those things, and where you retire at 35 as a multi-millionaire, and have the rest of your days to do all of that.

Then there’s Liverpool; the fanbase. We expect more. It might be unfair, but I’d take that kind of unfair if I could play for the club I loved, had the opportunity to challenge for the biggest honours, be paid handsomely for doing so and retire before I’m 40.

If he had stayed, then in less than 10 years the club would either have let him go on a free, or he’d have retired. And yeah, that’s a harsh way to be treated once you’ve outstayed your usefulness, but that’s the nature of the beast. The upside is so good, the trade-off doesn’t exactly pull at my heartstrings.

Also, it feels like Real Madrid, the club of Franco, the State and the Spanish Royal family, is the worst club you could possibly entertain going to as a Scouser. A socialist, republican city at its core.

Listen, I get that not all people are built the same, and I feel the majority of the fanbase are reasonable people, but they don’t like being manipulated, condescended to or taken the piss out of (ask Mark Lawrenson), and the video I saw today tried to do all three.

In saying all this I wouldn’t want to stand in the way of anyone who didn’t want to be at the club. In fact, if you don’t want to be here, then I don’t want you here. But if your mind's made up, and you wish to desert a luxury liner for a slightly flashier luxury liner, then I don’t get it - but go on your way. Just do it in the right way. It just doesn’t feel like Trent has done it the right way. I’m sure the club’s PR campaign video was meant to soften the blow, but they don’t know Liverpool fans if they thought that was a good idea.

I’m conflicted. Jurgen going was heart-breaking, and we didn’t get a fee for him. And he went with our best wishes. Is that simply because he’s a manager, or because he left in the right way?

There’s a portion of our fanbase which will likely call him a rat or send him hate on his socials, and I think I’m a little bit more mature than that - not that much, but a bit. So I won’t be wishing him well (how can you, at a club that pretty much epitomises everything wrong with football, who didn’t even attend the Ballon D’or because it wasn’t their player that won), but I have no ill will towards the human being himself.

Maybe one day I’ll look back and feel proud of what he gave us. Right now, all I feel is that he’s walked away from something sacred. And you don’t just get to do that quietly.

I’m just indifferent now, and that still hurts.

*These are not necessarily the views of LFC Lisboa.