Liverpool’s “world-class” talent is in danger of becoming the new Sterling

There’s just something about Liverpool. While other competitors ebb and flow with football’s ever-changing tide, Anfield stays strong despite ostensible blows.

Jurgen Klopp left at the end of the 2023/24 campaign and many thought it spelt the end of Liverpool’s success in and around the highest level of the continent’s scene, but Arne Slot has worked his magic and the Reds are cruising toward the Premier League title.

One year before, an entire midfield was washed away, four new parts brought in. Each quadrant of that dramatic rebuild has proven instrumental in one way or another, winning the Carabao Cup last season and now on the brink of loftier acclaim.

This ability to leap over hurdles is something that predates Klopp’s arrival, but it was refashioned upon the German’s appointment. It was his arrival which ensured the loss of the club’s prized possession, Raheem Sterling, would not prove to be the crushing blow that most anticipated.

Why Raheem Sterling left Liverpool

In 2014, Luis Suarez left Liverpool for Barcelona for £75m, a bitter blow after the Uruguayan’s brilliance wasn’t enough to get Brendan Rodgers’ outfit over the Premier League finish line in first place.

One year later, Sterling followed, forcing his way out aged 20 in a £49m deal, signing for Manchester City. Steven Gerrard admitted he was “disappointed” in the youngster, who had refused to travel on Liverpool’s pre-season tour after City’s opening bid was rejected.

Liverpool recruited Sterling from Queens Park Rangers’ academy, nurtured him toward the senior stage. It felt like there was so much more to give, and his sale did feel, at the time, like a crushing blow for a Liverpool side sliding back toward mediocrity.

Sterling’s departure was a blow, but so was Philippe Coutinho’s over three years later. Looking back now, neither proved to be to the detriment of Liverpool’s future success – the opposite, in fact.

At this later stage of a long and storied career, Sterling’s time at Anfield will be little more than an afterthought in his mind, a notion sure to be reciprocated by the Reds fanbase.

But when the memory of Sterling playing in red is dredged up at Liverpool, it’s hardly met with fondness. Indeed, boos can still be heard when the England international collects the ball at his former stomping ground.

Suarez, Sterling, Coutinho. A common theme through all these disappointing departures is Liverpool’s powers of endurance, their ability to absorb the impact of the loss and bounce back even stronger.

That’s not going to be any different this summer, with the club’s new version of the winger now materialising.

Liverpool’s new version of Raheem Sterling

Liverpool fans may have begrudged Sterling his decision to leave the club and join Manchester City, but he has forged a fantastic post-Merseyside career for himself, and Trent Alexander-Arnold may well envisage similar heights.

Of course, he missed out on the chance to play under Klopp’s wing, missed out on the chance to be part of a staggering rise from the rubble, up and up and up to the top echelon of football, where Anfield perches to this day.

Praised for his “world-class” quality by Klopp, Alexander-Arnold has devoted far more of his career to Liverpool than his Three Lions teammate, but that’s not to say his move is any less controversial.

Real Madrid are one of Liverpool’s biggest European rivals. Klopp, for all his glory, tasted two Champions League final defeats against Los Blancos, with Alexander-Arnold starting at right-back both times.

If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. It certainly feels like that is applicable when considering Alexander-Arnold’s situation.

Nothing in football is certain, but title-winning success is commonplace at the Santiago Bernabeu, and while things aren’t quite clicking for the Spanish giants this season, Carlo Ancelotti is expected to depart in the coming weeks and Xabi Alonso is touted as his successor.

It’s a new era, one which will excite Trent massively, joining a close friend in Jude Bellingham and many of the world’s best players besides.

No doubt, the thought of pinging balls into the path of Vinicius Junior, of Kylian Mbappe, is an arresting thought indeed, and no doubt a major part in the ball-playing defender’s thought process.

The difference, however, is that the veteran winger left a Liverpool team in transition, not yet christened into Klopp’s dynasty and instead on the ostensible decline after the agonising miss of 2013/14, of Suarez’s flight to Barcelona, of Gerrard’s retirement from the European scene.

Many fans will accept Alexander-Arnold’s decision – which, mind, has not yet been set in stone – but many more will lament his decision to leave his boyhood club, to renounce his status as ‘the Scouser in Liverpool’s team.’

Slot is skipping toward the Premier League title in his first season at the helm; Liverpool have renewed the contracts of Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah, now set to turn their financial cannon toward significant investment in the summer transfer market.

What more could Alexander-Arnold want?

This situation harkens back to a quote from Klopp when Coutinho was heavily linked with a move to Barcelona, now indelibly etched into the Liverpool fanbase’s mantra: “I told him stay here and they will end up building a statue in your honour. Go somewhere else, to Barcelona, to Bayern Munich, to Real Madrid, and you will be just another player. Here you can be something more.”

Football is a tribal sport, somehow giving rise to the fiercest and purest form of passion. Alexander-Arnold’s decision is his to make, but he runs the risk of ceding a spot alongside the legends of his team, should he leave on a free transfer this summer.

Many will remember him in a bracket closer to those who left before him, rather than among Liverpool’s legendary figures. Perhaps the poignant part is that such a status is there for the taking, merely a scribble away.