With the rampaging right-back on his way to Real Madrid, GOAL looks back on his historic feats at Anfield and beyond…
Trent Alexander-Arnold's time at Liverpool is ending in acrimony, with the club's homegrown hero having upset a significant number of supporters by electing to run down his contract and leave on free transfer this summer. There's no guarantee, in fact, that the Real Madrid-bound right-back won't be subjected to more boos when Arne Slot's side lift the Premier League title at Anfield on Sunday.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of Alexander-Arnold's decision and the fans' reaction to it, the one thing everyone can agree on is that the nature of the 26-year-old's exit is a real shame. After all, Alexander-Arnold played a pivotal role in Liverpool's glorious era of success under Jurgen Klopp before making a significant contribution to an unexpected title triumph in his final season on Merseyside.
Below, GOAL counts down Alexander-Arnold's top 10 most memorable moments in a red shirt…
Getty Images Sport10Long-awaited debut
Jurgen Klopp was recently asked to name his best signing as Liverpool manager. He went with Alexander-Arnold, even though he was an academy product. Klopp also gave most of the credit for the teenager's promotion to the senior squad to assistant Pep Lijnders, who had coached Alexander-Arnold at Under-16s level and was convinced that the club had a multi-talented prodigy on their hands.
"Pep said 'He played No.6 for me, he played full-back, he can play right wing, left wing,'" Klopp told the podcast. "If you hear something like that you should be a little bit skeptical, ‘Okay… and what else?!' But then he came and there was only one problem: he was not fit enough. But he was a kid and when you saw him, 'wow!' Football-wise, no doubts, but not fit enough."
So, while Alexander-Arnold was named on the bench for Liverpool's Premier League opener at Arsenal on August 15, 2016 after a rigorous pre-season programme, he didn't actually feature in the League Cup games against Burton Albion and Derby County, and only found out he was in the starting line-up for the fourth-round clash with Tottenham on October 25 the day before the game at Anfield.
Alexander-Arnold subsequently admitted himself that he was a little too eager to impress and was a tad lucky to avoid a red card for a poor challenge on Ben Davies, but he nonetheless caught the eye with his dynamism and confidence on the ball.
AdvertisementGetty Images Sport9First EPL start – at Old Trafford
Klopp has admitted that he had no idea that Alexander-Arnold would go on to become the best attacking full-back in Premier League history, but the German did have full "trust and faith" in him from a very early age. Consequently, Klopp had no qualms about turning to Alexander-Arnold after Nathaniel Clyne was forced to pull out of the Premier League meeting with Manchester United at Old Trafford on January 15, 2017 through injury.
"He didn't look too surprised, to be honest," the ex-Reds boss later explained. "Not that he expected it, he just wasn't too nervous."
Hardly surprising, then, that Alexander-Arnold impressed on his first Premier League start, playing all 90 minutes of a 1-1 draw with Liverpool's biggest rivals. "It was the first big step for him," Klopp said. "And a very important step for us as well."
Getty Images8First goal
Liverpool won a free-kick in a central position some 30 metres from the Hoffenheim goal in the 35th minute of the first leg of their 2017 Champions League play-off at the Rhein-Neckar-Arena. Unsurprisingly for a kid making his European debut, Alexander-Arnold didn't initially put his hand up to take it. But after being encouraged to do so by captain Jordan Henderson, the full-back lifted the ball over the wall and into the bottom corner of the net.
"Obviously, it's the stuff of dreams to make your European debut for your boyhood club – and to mark it with a goal as well was very special for me," Alexander-Arnold told .
As for Henderson, he felt the goal was just reward for all of the hard work the 18-year-old was putting in on the training pitch: "He was outstanding last season and he has come back and gone up another level again in pre-season. The free-kick is no coincidence either. He has been doing that every day in training for the last few weeks!"
AFP7Game-changer and match-winner
During the tail end of Klopp's reign, he would often move Alexander-Arnold into midfield during games – and usually to great effect. Nowhere was this play more thrillingly executed than at Anfield on December 3, 2023, when Liverpool came from two goals down with three minutes of normal time remaining to win 4-3.
Alexander-Arnold had effectively started the scoring, by hitting the crossbar with a first-half free that ricocheted into the back of the net off Bernd Leno, before then firing home the winner in the dying seconds.
"I'm not sure I have to say anything about him," Klopp told reporters afterwards. "Nobody is in doubt how highly I think about Trent. The development is crazy. His shooting skills, we knew before, but today he was a real leader on the pitch – that's probably the biggest improvement in him.
"Because it was super-intense but it got kind of another push when you put him a bit more inside in that moment. But he's very often in half-spaces in the centre and stuff like this, so it was just really good. But he was a real leader on the pitch – that was most important thing."
