Homegrown maverick will be missed as Liverpool near tipping point

Alexander-Arnold's rare talents are hard to replace but departures present an opportunity for Arne Slot

- Barney Ronay

To make an end is to make a beginning: the end is where we start. Wise words there from T S Eliot, who, to be fair, never had to rebuild a high-end Premier League team while also dealing with closing out a title race, natural era-wastage, and losing your most successful homegrown player since the glory days of Phil Thompson waving the European Cup around in the pub and all that.

For Liverpool supporters it seems likely the next month will bring a wildly varying emotional register. Departures and farewells. Winning the league in front of actual non-quarantined humans. The sense, even through the veil of commemorative red smoke, that the team that got you here are finally starting to become something else. Spring is always a time of reckoning up in football, April the cruellest month, all new shoots and final blooms, memories and desires, cheers but also sometimes jeers. So yeah. Let's see how that pans out for the lads.

This is the real point about the news that Trent Alexander-Arnold's move to Real Madrid is all but done. It is, of course, simply confirmation by now. Leaving on a free transfer is entirely on the club not the player, just as it is a bit nuts to suggest Alexander-Arnold should have signed an unwanted new contract in the hope this might winkle out more money for his soon to be former employer.

But it is still a shock for fans to see this finally come to pass. It is also logical and reassuring that this will draw a powerful emotional response. Football is not supposed to be a forgiving place when it comes to this kind of stuff. There is simply no point having a reasoned counterpoint, or suggesting, well, people leave jobs all the time. Football is not hotel management.