Arne Slot has urged Liverpool fans to continue backing right-back Trent Alexander-Arnold as a summer speculation transfer at Real Madrid is still spinning.
Now, in the last six months of his contract, Alexander-Arnold has been subject to a Madrid’s failed approachthat they think they are preparing a second offer for a player who plans to land on a free transfer in the summer anyway.
Slot has insisted Alexander-Arnold remains fully committed to Liverpoolbut the contract dispute has divided opinion among fans on social media. Club hero Jamie Carragher accused the right-back’s entourage of encouraging the approach from Madrid and deliberately disrupting preparations for Sunday’s big game against Manchester United.
Keen to keep everyone together, Slot told a press conference: “I don’t think I have to tell our fans how to react because they always support and have supported their team and their players for so many years .
“I have full confidence in them that they will react in the right way because we have been consistently together for the half year that I have been here.
“And I think it’s something that stands out here that, for so many years, the team and the fans have been together. That’s created so many special games and so many special things for this club that they don’t need me. tell them how they have to react.”
Next to Alexander-Arnold, Liverpool they are also struggling to secure the future of centre-back Virgil van Dijk, while Mohamed Salah continued public pressure on the club by declaring he was in his “last year” at Liverpool due to lack of progress in negotiations on an extension.
Despite all the tension, Slot argued that the contract drama could benefit his team on the pitch.
“Maybe it’s even useful now that you ask me,” Slot explained. “Because if it’s just about how well we’re doing, maybe every week I have to have a meeting to tell the players that it’s still not perfect and we have to do better.
“To me, it’s not distracting at all. I think we get enough credit for the way we play and here in the building, me and the players, we don’t talk about those situations.
“It’s part of the business we’re in. The month of January happens at every club in the world. People talk: ‘Will he come in? Will he leave?’. It doesn’t distract me at all and I don’t think about the players either.”
