Trent Alexander-Arnold looks set to become the latest player to leave Liverpool in acrimonious circumstances as his move to Real Madrid appears to be drawing closer.
According to talkSPORT, the 26-year-old has agreed to join Real Madrid this summer and will sign a five-year deal with the Spanish giants, worth in excess of £220,000-per-week.
We’ve gone back throughout Liverpool’s recent history and have found eight players who left the club in acrimonious circumstances.
Raheem Sterling
Sterling rejected a £100,000-a-week contract offer at Anfield in favour of joining Manchester City in 2015.
The transfer saga was drawn out in public and it’s safe to say that Liverpool fans didn’t take kindly to the England international joining their Premier League rivals.
Ultimately, Sterling will feel as if the move to Manchester was vindicated, given he won 11 trophies with the club and scored over 130 goals.
Fernando Torres
The Spanish forward handed in a transfer request just three days before the January transfer deadline in 2011.
Liverpool initially rejected his request, but they were ultimately forced to sell him once Chelsea triggered his £50million release clause.
In hindsight, the Reds got a good deal out of selling Torres when they did, but the fanbase was understandably shaken at the time.
“When we were getting the £50million for Torres we were like, ‘wow, they’re not getting the Torres we know’. We knew that at the time,” Jamie Carragher said on The Overlap.
“He’d always scored against Chelsea and Chelsea were desperate for him and the only good game he had that season was against Chelsea.”
Michael Owen
After running down his contract at Anfield, Owen manoeuvred a move to Real Madrid in 2004 with Liverpool receiving just £8million.
To make matters worse, the forward then ended up joining Manchester United a few years later, cementing Liverpool fans distaste for the forward.
Emre Can
Despite being offered a new contract at Liverpool, the German midfielder rejected the extension and signed a bumper deal with Juventus instead.
“I had a lot of offers from very good teams,” Can said at the time.
“I decided to come to Juventus because I think the project here is very big. They have very big aims. I want to be part of the project here.”
Ultimately, the move didn’t really work out and it wasn’t long until the German international was on the move once again.
Xabi Alonso
Rafa Benitez will always be fondly remembered by Liverpool fans, but perhaps not by Alonso.
Towards the end of Alonso’s time at Anfield, his relationship with Benitez had become strained and he ultimately ended up leaving in 2009 after a series of disagreements.
Their relationship became particularly strained after Benitez fell out with his star midfielder over the birth of Alonso’s son prior to a Champions League clash against Inter.
“It was for the Champions League quarter-final squad against Inter,” Alonso told El Pais in 2017. “We were going into labour, and I told Rafa that I could not go. I would go when everything was fine.
“[I said I would] take a plane and meet them there. He didn’t accept it. I had to make a decision and I decided to be with my family.
“It wasn’t easy, my job isn’t a normal job and it was not an ordinary game, however I never have any regrets.”
Steve McManaman
In many ways, McManaman found himself in a similar situation to Alexander-Arnold back in 1999.
The Bootle-born winger was in the final year of his contract with Liverpool and controversially signed a pre-contract with Real Madrid in January 1999.
While McManaman won plenty of silverware during his four seasons in Spain, he’s since admitted that it didn’t feel the same as winning them with Liverpool.
“We’d just won the first Champions League and I’d only been at the club 10 months,” McManaman told the We Are Liverpool podcast.
“The lads were in the dressing room, singing Spanish songs and lifting the president in the air – which I did.
“But I just felt as if I was a bit of a fraud. I just thought to myself, ‘this is just weird’.
“I remember thinking, ‘I would have loved to have done this with Liverpool’ – because I would’ve been right in the forefront of it all and really throwing myself into it.
“I was very much on the periphery of all the celebrations just because I didn’t understand it.”
Georginio Wijnaldum
The Dutch midfielder was a cult-hero during his five-year stay at Anfield, although he didn’t seem to feel the love from the fans at the time.
“There was a moment I didn’t feel loved and appreciated,” Wijnaldum said after leaving the club.
“I have to say also there was social media. When it went bad, I was the player who they blamed – said that I wanted to leave.
“On social media, if we lost, I was the one who got the blame.
“I think the fans in the stadium and the fans in social media – my feeling was that they were two different things. In the stadium, I can say nothing bad about them.”
After rejecting a contract renewal offer from Liverpool, Wijnaldum left in 2021 to sign a lucrative deal with PSG – with plenty of fans at the time claiming that money was his only motivation for making the move.
Luis Suarez
“I signed my new contract because I’m very happy here and I want to stay where I’m enjoying football and life,” Suarez told reporters in 2014 when committing his future to Liverpool.
However, just six months after making those comments, he manoeuvred a move to Barcelona, which didn’t sit right with a number of Liverpool fans at the time.