06 May 2025 06:06:42
I'm having a hard time believing that Trent's exit is mostly on the club for not locking him down sooner. Perhaps he did knock on the door for a new contract a while ago, but I also find it a cop out that it justifies feeling unwanted by the club. If he wants to go now then it's a decision he likely made a long time ago.
The Athletic did an article on Trent way back in 2020 and it explained that Trent's main ambition is to collect trophies. We were slowly becoming less competitive with Klopp, sure we were usually in the conversation but we were missing the final edge to cross the finish line, because Klopp had lost energy and our recruitment and retention had lost its cutting edge. I think Trent pulled his crystal ball out in 2023 and set his sights on Spain.
The club perhaps could have locked him down sooner to get a fee for him, but it was never going to change the ultimate outcome.
There was also a lot of instability in the technical department 18 months ago, Julian Ward didn't last very long, and then Klopp recruited the help of his German mate, who was sinking pina coladas and chugging darts on the beach. It was very ad hoc and nobody could have been confident about our current trajectory back then.
06 May 2025 06:28:21
It ultimately comes down to how much Liverpool means to the player. If we aren't competitive then Madrid sell the idea of trophies. If we dominate then they sell the idea of a new challenge. Trent means more to Trent than what Liverpool means to him, and he's shown signs of that for years.
06 May 2025 06:30:51
It’s not on the club. If he’d have wanted to stay then he would have done. He had no intention of signing a new contract, that can’t be the club’s fault.
If it was the case that there were some slight delays behind the scenes because of the change in staff then OK but the main point still stands - he always intended to go so the discussions were pointless. All that ‘don’t want to go public’ tosh was just a cover for his true intentions.
06 May 2025 06:41:56
I agree with Johnnyr.
Salah and Van Dijk wanted to stay, they got a deal done in the second half of this season.
No reason Trent couldn’t have done the same IF he wanted to stay.
He wanted to leave, it’s his career, his choice.
I’m not going to criticise him. He’ll find out, the Madrid fans will never love him as much as he was loved at Anfield. We largely overlooked his defensive deficiencies, that won’t happen in Madrid.
06 May 2025 06:45:22
Reality is if Trent wanted to stay then he would have signed at whatever time to get it done. Of course there was a changeover of management personnel and it clearly was a bit of a sh#t show but Trent could have waited and then get a contract sorted. He didn’t, he decided he wanted to leave. I get the frustration about not getting a fee at least, we certainly could have done with the money but he’s going, that’s it, no point in showing any ill feeling, it changes nothing.
Concentrate on the future, who might be coming in the door, the new players, not the one who has decided to leave.
06 May 2025 06:50:20
Exactly Ron. He's a great player no doubt, but I don't see him lasting too long at Madrid. I can see him being hounded out after a couple of years and a few too many goals conceded / games lost due to his defensive lapses, ending up on loan in a farmers league or lower down the prem. I wish him well although I must admit only in personal terms. I hate Real Madrid more than any other club so I don't wish him luck in the remainder of his career! I can't abide the way that club behaves.
06 May 2025 07:41:11
I think the club have hinted in their statements that they made the effort to resign him. The rumour is, they made a significant offer to make him the best paid defender in the PL and he turned it down.
Maybe it's a bit of both, we'll never know. Best just to head to the beach and sink pina colada.
06 May 2025 08:30:54
I don't believe you can pin down one factor as to why this has happened. It's always a combination of factors. But I also think it's a basic rudimentary skill for a recruitment manager to figure out what the intentions of a player are through talks with his agent. Regardless of the chaos in that department, Hughes should have figured things out (if TAA was stalling as they say) and sold him in January. Get some money in for the club. People who say they don't mind foregoing the 20-30 million to keep TAA at the club for the second half of the season have lost sight of what that kind of money can do for you. TAA wanted to leave, Hughes dropped the ball, Bradley is deemed to be ready replacement. These are the reasons, in my view.
06 May 2025 08:33:00
I think the club should of had it sorted prior to Klopp leaving. However, once Klopp announced he was leaving. Trent/ Salah and VVD all took the time to see if Liverpool was right for them. With Trent, Real saw an oppurtunity and managed to turn his head.
I don't solely blame the club for him leaving but we have to accept they have played a part in it by leaving the door ajar for Real to waltz in.
06 May 2025 07:16:33
The only fault of the club is not selling him the moment he had his turned on. they took him for granted (local lad, scouse, academy) . I hope the club has learned a lesson and become ruthless like other clubs. Philippe Coutinho signed an extension, faked a back injury, and was sold for a whooping £140 mill which funded the signing of Allison and VVD.
Wataru Endo will have a bigger legacy than Trent.
06 May 2025 10:37:28
It doesn't matter that the door was left ajar, Madrid would just open it anyway. I don't see how the club could have moved to lock him down before Klopp left when they didn't know he was leaving until the announcement. Only his wife and the tip of the FSG pyramid knew about this. We didn't even have a sporting director in 2023, the technical department off the field was arguably a shambles.
06 May 2025 10:45:07
Whilst we didn’t get a transfer fee, we will of course have £65m to spend over 5 years as that’s probably what his wages would have been for a 5 year contract.
06 May 2025 07:16:33
The only fault of the club is not selling him the moment he had his turned on. they took him for granted (local lad, scouse, academy) . I hope the club has learned a lesson and become ruthless like other clubs. Philippe Coutinho signed an extension, faked a back injury, and was sold for a whooping £140 mill which funded the signing of Allison and VVD.
Wataru Endo will have a bigger legacy than Trent.