Liverpool fans booing Trent was nothing, wait till he joins Real Madrid | OneFootball

A civil war has unfolded at Liverpool between the fans and the club's vice-captain.

Following months of knowing exactly what his decision was going to be regarding his future, Trent Alexander-Arnold finally decided to put us out of our misery last week with a farewell post.

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At no point throughout the season had he decided to be open and honest about what his intentions were, yet his and the media's assumption that Liverpool fans would be perfectly okay with him deciding to abandon his boyhood club was to be proved wrong on Sunday.

Once the clock struck 67 minutes, Conor Bradley was brought off and Trent replaced him for the remainder of the contest. The jovial party atmosphere turned in an instant into a mixture of boos and applause from the onlooking Anfield faithful. At last, an opportunity express how the felt about it all.

You could tell that he was rattled by it all, constantly looking over his shoulder as if the crowd were actually telling him 'man-on' when in fact his mere presence filled them with rage and sorrow.

The normal lad from Liverpool whose dream had just come true by playing for the team he supported as a boy had changed. Suddenly, a regular spot in a Premier League winning side was not enough to satisfy him anymore.

Now, everyone from every persuasion has since stuck their two penn'orth in, claiming that Liverpool fans should feel a certain way, or claiming that 'You'll Never Walk Alone' is conditional, but the reality is this. Liverpool fans feel how they feel, and Trent will simply have to get over it.

He's made his bed and now he'll have to lie in it. But one thing is for sure, if he felt the atmosphere inside Anfield that day was hostile, then he has no idea what it's like to be a Real Madrid player.

© Anfield Watch - Florentino Perez Trent Alexander-Arnold Real Madrid 2024-25

The fans at Real Madrid are far more brutal

Ordinarily, it would be unheard of for a Liverpool player to receive boos from the Anfield crowd.

But these are no ordinary circumstances. Trent has already confirmed that he is leaving and we all know where he'll be going to. In essence, he's a Real Madrid player with the Liverbird on his chest.

After all, if Liverpool were to draw Los Blancos in the Champions League next season, and he made a return to Anfield, would it be any more acceptable to boo him then?

Nonetheless, the act of Trent leaving us isn't why we're booing him. To think that would be to completely overlook the situation. At no point has the fans' representative on the pitch decided to be clear about where his head is at. He dragged us along and allowed us to dream that there might still be a glimmer of hope that he could stay.

Rival fans won't be able to truly understand why there is such uproar about it all, but that shouldn't invalidate Liverpool fans' visceral feelings that were authentic and honestly held.

Over at Real Madrid, however, the likelihood of a player being booed by the fans is far more likely.

In the dying moments of last night's El Classico match, a big chance to level the match fell to 21-year-old academy graduate Victor Muñoz, who was unable to get his shot on target.

While he had just 10 minutes to get himself up to speed on the pitch, he would've backed himself to score and so it was a heartbreaking end to the contest. A nightmare that'll haunt him for years.

This was his senior Real Madrid debut, having only featured for the reserve team in the Primera Federacion prior to this opportunity. He would've been nervous beyond belief throughout his cameo.

And yet the response that Los Blancos fans decided to give him was one of abuse in his social media comments, leaving him no choice but to disable them. A reminder, that this is an academy player receiving hate from his own teams fans for missing a chance at goal in his debut for the club.

To call the Real Madrid fans harsh for their reaction to Muñoz's cameo would be an understatement.

Furthermore, Madrid fans being completely irrational towards their own players isn't a new thing.

Across the seven seasons that Gareth Bale spent at the club, he was subjected to waves of abhorrent abuse on an incredibly regular basis, despite him winning four Champions Leagues with the club and him delivering one of the most iconic goals in their history. By all accounts he's a legend, but in the eyes of the fans, he is a figure who they despise.

Now, of course, Trent might excel at Real Madrid, but his defensive woes as a right-back make him a ready made target for the fans if he continues to make mistakes that prove costly next season.

Everyone makes mistakes. It's part of life and football players will make countless errors during matches. But you support your players. Liverpool fans have always defended Trent in debates about his defending and for three years, they've tried to get behind Darwin Nunez despite his flaws.

Although, I'm sure he already knows that.