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| | | 12/05/2025 Trent Alexander-Arnold and the Anfield jeers of fans who feel jilted |
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Barry Glendenning |  |
| | WALK ON … THROUGH THE BOOS | During last week’s video in which Trent Alexander-Arnold revealed that he would be leaving Liverpool come season’s end, he referred to the “noise” surrounding his decision and hoped it would not drown out his team’s achievement in winning the Premier League title this season. And while his unsurprising news prompted even more unsurprising online wailing, hand-wringing and accusations of treachery, the perceived wisdom was that those who feel Alexander-Arnold has some sort of weird moral obligation to remain at Anfield until such time as Liverpool deem him surplus to their requirements were simply crazies on the internet. People who couldn’t handle being jilted for somebody better. And that match-going fans would respect the defender’s decision to move on to pastos nuevos and show their appreciation for all the happiness he has brought them in his years with the club. And to be fair, plenty of them did, even if the number who didn’t was large and loud enough to prompt post-match pondering from Arne Slot over whether the split between those who applauded and booed the 26-year-old’s second-half introduction was 60-40, 50-50 or 40-60. “I don’t know but what I do know is clapping is not as loud as booing,” declared Liverpool’s head coach after the 2-2 draw with Arsenal. “It is a privilege to live in Europe where everyone can have his own opinion and express their own opinion and that is what we saw.” Booed when his name was announced before the game, booed on to the pitch and subsequently booed each time he touched the ball, the hostility to which Alexander-Arnold was subjected naturally became the main talking point of a largely inconsequential encounter. After criticising the media for telling Liverpool fans “how they should feel” about Alexander-Arnold’s departure last week, the columnist and pundit Jamie Carragher had a pop at those Liverpool supporters who felt strongly enough about it on Sunday to jeer the player. “For me, I don’t believe any player putting on that red shirt who goes out to play for the club and win three points and to win trophies should be booed,” he clucked. “I understand there’s a lot of ill-feeling. Some people outside of Liverpool don’t get that – I do. But booing one of your own players while they’re playing is not for me.” While Alexander-Arnold gave no indication that he was even remotely fazed by the abuse and diligently engaged in the usual post-match platitudes instead of cupping his ears to all four sides of the ground and sprinting across Stanley Park to sign for Everton, only he and his nearest and dearest will know how much he was hurt by the reception afforded to him. A couple of his teammates, however, made little or no secret of their contempt for the vitriol visited upon their pal. Not long after Dominik Szoboszlai had angrily curtailed his post-match niceties by way of response to the opprobrium, Andy Robertson was asked for his thoughts on the matter. “It’s not nice to see a friend get booed,” he said. “He’s made the decision and it’s not nice to see a friend get booed but as I said we can’t tell people how to act. I can tell you how I feel about it; I’m extremely proud of what he’s done for the club. I love him as a friend and player and he will be missed for me as one of my best friends in the game.” Finally, some perspective but as the famous old song goes, you’ll never walk alone … unless you set off for Madrid on a free transfer. |
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LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE | Join John Brewin from 8pm BST for hot Championship playoff semi-final minute-by-minute coverage of Sheffield United 2-1 Bristol City (agg: 5-1). |
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QUOTE OF THE DAY | “[We feel] disappointment and frustration, of course. But it is because of the owner and his passion that we are growing as a club. He pushes us. He wants us to be better. It is his passion and desire to be a big club – 30,000 people felt the same today. For sure, many of them would go on the pitch and shake us down. Us as a club, we owe a lot to the Marinakis family” – company man Nuno Espírito Santo attempts to defend Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis for furiously confronting him on the pitch after the 2-2 Bigger Cup dream-denting draw with Leicester. As for the big man himself – already fresh off a five-game stadium ban for his conduct this season – the Greek declared: “This is a demonstration of the passion we feel for our club. Let’s all be grateful, passionate and keep on dreaming.” | |  A fresh and frank public discussion, earlier. Photograph: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images |
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FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS | | Re: Dominic Hodgson (Friday’s Football Daily letters). Many thanks to Liverpool for carrying out his suggestion to ‘provide Arsenal with a guard of honour twice’ in the second half on Sunday. Especially the defence performing their legendary ‘House of Bamboo’ routine for the Gunners first goal. An exceptional and timely touch of class” – Dan Coleman. | | After years of watching mindless stat-padding possession-based, risk-averse football, a genuine doff of the cap to Hansi Flick and the Barça players for their throwback to the days of utter chaos. First the Bigger Cup semi-final first leg, then the second leg and now El Clásico” – Noble Francis. | | I see that among the explanatory drivel Newcastle United offered to justify redesigning their club badge (Friday’s News, Bits and Bobs, full email edition) was the sentence: ‘Its intricate design doesn’t always translate well in today’s digital world. And it’s difficult to reproduce it clearly and consistently.’ If the aim of the new badge is to minimise intricacy and increase ease of reproduction, can I suggest they pursue it to the ultimate digital black-and-white design: a QR code” – Ken Muir [who also went the distance in producing his own one that we couldn’t quite get to translate into this newsletter – Football Daily Ed]. | Send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s letter o’ the day winner is … Ken Muir, who lands some official Football Weekly merch. Terms and conditions for our competitions, when we run them, can be viewed here. |
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FERGIE TIME | Our reader interview series kicked off in some style over the weekend with this grilling of Duncan Ferguson. Among the subjects up for discussion: trendy Scottish nightspots, tears, his toughest opponent and biggest regrets … and pigeons. “Once I had a few quid I converted the pigeon loft,” he explains. “It had a conveyor belt that collected the droppings. All I had to do was push a button and the droppings would be taken outside. It had underfloor heating, a tiled roof, the lot. It was better than my house! It was like a sauna and the pigeons would be lying there with their wings up. They couldn’t race, they wouldn’t come out the loft! It was about 40ft long. I still keep pigeons but I don’t race them any more. I like looking at them and petting them. Keeps me calm.” | |  Dunc at the Titanic. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian |
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NEWS, BITS AND BOBS | Carlo Ancelotti will become Brazil’s first-ever foreign head coach on 26 May which, let’s be honest, doesn’t give him much of a summer holiday after waltzing out of the Real Madrid door marked Do One on 25 May. And how about that clásico? “I am going to have to check my heart,” exclaimed Barcelona coach Hansi Flick in the wake of their decisive 4-3 victory over Madrid. “It would be easy to say that the tactic is to score four if they score three … It would be nice to win three titles and only need one victory now. [But] this is football.” It’s 17 Premier League defeats and counting this season for Manchester United, beaten 2-0 at home by West Ham, but still only 90 minutes from Bigger Cup. “If we don’t change the way we play and perform, and feel this urgency of winning every game, we should not play in [Bigger Cup],” sighed Ruben Amorim. “We should just stay in the Premier League and learn to be competitive one week at a time. Playing in the Premier League and [Bigger Cup] for us is the moon.” It’s 20 Premier League defeats and counting this season for Spurs, beaten 2-0 at home by Crystal Palace, but still also 90 minutes from Bigger Cup. “I just think some of it is psychological in terms of not being able to cope with what’s before us at the moment,” parped Ange Postecoglou. Nicolas Jackson is getting the silent treatment from Chelsea’s Enzo Maresca, what with getting sent off for elbowing Sven Botman in the head during the 2-0 defeat at Newcastle. “It’s not the moment for me to speak to Nico,” tooted Maresca. “Nico has to learn … In the next day we’ll speak to him. This season is finished for him and he’s our No 9, our striker. We have to avoid these kind of things because we need all our squad available.” Former Italy defender Alia Guagni had her CV printed on the front of her kit for the final match of her career before retiring from football, in an attempt to raise awareness of the uncertainty female players often face when seeking a job after their playing days are done. | |  Alia Guagni’s CV there. Photograph: Fulvio Bonavia/Como Women | Inter Miami co-chief suit David Beckham got busy in the comment section of a social media abomination to tell Minnesota United to “show a little respect” after the Loons celebrated victory by poking fun at the team they called the “Pink Phony Club”. “Be elegant in triumph,” added Becks, helpfully keeping his word-count down. Stockport boss Dave Challinor is still stewing after their 2-2 League One playoff first leg draw at Leyton Orient, who were the benefactors of Charlie Kelman’s offside opening goal. “Massive kudos to our players for reacting in a positive way to a decision which was the worst I’ve seen in my 15 years of management, in what was the biggest game of my managerial career,” he fumed. “That was an absolute shocker. When someone is four yards offside that’s really worrying.” | |  Ouch. Photograph: Sky Sports | Elsewhere in the playoffs: Sunderland are in the box seat to probably join Sheffield United at Wembley after a 2-1 win at Coventry; Wycombe and Charlton are level at 0-0 through 90 minutes of their League one semi-final; and Walsall and AFC Wimbledon lead their League Two semis after 2-0 and 1-0 wins at Chesterfield and Notts County, respectively, in their first legs. And after 99 years and two football clubs, Aldershot are basking in their first trip to Wembley, where they beat Spennymoor Town 3-0 to lift the FA Trophy. “People will forget about me. That’s what happens in football. But they’ll never forget how I’ve made them feel, how my team’s made them feel,” said manager Tommy Widdrington, back in the dugout after having two strokes in November. “Football’s a tough old industry. It kicks you up the backside a lot more than it pats you on the back. I’m going to enjoy being patted on the back the next few days.” |
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STILL WANT MORE? | | |  Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian | |  Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian | | |  Anti-Glazer composite image, right here. Composite: Getty Images, Reuters | Here’s Jonathan Wilson on Nicolas Jackson’s petulant red card in the 2-0 loss at Newcastle, leaving Chelsea’s top-five bid in jeopardy. And here’s Jonathan on how Antonio Conte is leaving fans in Napoli cold despite being on the verge of adding to his reputation as a title machine. Tom Garry explains the scale of the summer rebuild facing Manchester City Women after missing out on Europe. Could Porto prodigy Rodrigo Mora be the next superstar of European football, muses Miguel Dantas. And Nick Ames reports on Iceland’s UMF Grindavík, who are playing again after an 18-month gap caused by devastating seismic activity. |
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MEMORY LANE | To Wembley in June 2007 as Frank Lampard joins up with Tesco chief suit Sir Terry Leahy for an impromptu – and admittedly artfully framed – game of head tennis to launch an FA kids initiative. | |  Photograph: Lee Mills/The FA/Action Images |
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