Tim Jon Barry's Blog

This week it was confirmed that Trent Alexander-Arnold is leaving Liverpool at the end of the season when his contract expires, with Real Madrid almost certain to be his new club next season.

His impending departure has caused a major divide in the fanbase since the rumours of him refusing to sign a new contract and sign for Real Madrid became too loud to ignore at the turn of the year. From those wishing him well in the next chapter of his career after winning everything possible with his boyhood club, to those accusing him of betraying the fans and staff of Liverpool FC who have invested so much effort and dedication into helping him become the player he is.

Trent is following a well-trodden path of homegrown Liverpool talents who left their boyhood club for the wealth and glamour of Real, namely Steve McManaman and Michael Owen, with varying degrees of success. Whilst McManaman went on to win the Champions League twice, scoring in the 2000 final against Valencia, Owen was a relative flop playing second fiddle to the Real Galacticos such as Ronaldo, Figo and Zidane.

So will Trent enjoy a similar, or even greater, level of success to McManaman, or will the move to Spain be as bad a choice for his career and Liverpool legacy as it was for Owen? All three broke into the first team as teenagers and became perennial starters no matter who was brought in to give them competition, and played a big part in major trophies won by the club.

McManaman starred in the 1992 FA Cup final against Sunderland, and the 1995 League Cup final against Bolton in which he scored both goals. His only other cup final appearance for Liverpool was in the 1996 FA Cup, when as one of Liverpool's "Spice Boys" he suffered a 1-0 loss to Manchester United.

Owen struck twice against Arsenal to win the 2001 FA Cup, the same year in which Liverpool also won the League Cup and UEFA Cup. He also scored when Liverpool defeated Manchester United to win the 2003 League Cup, which was his last trophy with the club.

Trent has surpassed both, in terms of trophies if not individual performances, by playing in three Champions League finals (winning once versus Tottenham Hotspur in 2019), one FA Cup and three League Cup Finals, as well as winning the Premier League in 2019/20 and 2024/25.

McManaman, like Trent, did not sign a new contract before his was due to expire at the end of the 1998/99 season, and agreed to join Real Madrid on a Bosman free transfer for the 1999/2000 season. The loss of McManaman, however, did not have a major impact on Liverpool's performances on the pitch (mainly due to the emergence of another local talent, Steven Gerrard). Whilst Gerard Houllier attempted to bring in a direct replacement in Vladimir Smicer, McManaman's role as creator and goalscorer was shared between Gerrard and Danny Murphy primarily.

Whilst Owen did not leave on a free transfer (instead it was a nominal transfer fee plus right winger Antonio Nunez), Liverpool had already signed a replacement in Djibril Cisse as well as already having the top scorer from the 2004 European Championships, Milan Baros. Neither of them managed to replicate Owen's goal tally (Cisse suffered a horrifying double-fractured leg which ruled him out for most of the season), but Liverpool still managed to reach the finals of the League Cup and Champions League.

So while Liverpool did not successfully replace either McManaman or Owen after they left for Real Madrid, the team adapted their shape and tactics to accommodate different styles of forward. As there are very few full-backs in world football (if any) with the passing range and vision of Trent, it is going to be impossible to replace him, so we must hope that Slot will tweak his Liverpool side in the same way as Houllier and Benitez did when McManaman and Owen left.

The other question is how Liverpool fans will remember Trent after his Spanish adventure has concluded. After several successful seasons with Real, McManaman returned to the Premier League to play for Manchester City, but has never received the hatred and vitriol experienced by Owen. This is most likely due to the fact that Owen signed for Manchester United after first joining Newcastle United when he returned from Spain. The only thing worse than leaving Liverpool on a free transfer is signing for your deadly rivals.

Right now is too early to judge, as emotions are still high and Trent still has a few weeks left at Liverpool (unless Real pay to enable him to join them at the World Club Championship), but we can still speculate whether Trent will make more of a success of this move than McManaman, less than Owen or somewhere in between.

When he joined Real in 1999, McManaman had only really played in one big tournament, the 1996 European Championships and been a squad member at the 1998 World Cup. Owen had played a big part for England in two World Cups and two European Championships before he joined Real, so theoretically he should have adapted better to playing for a top European side.

However, perhaps due to his recurring hamstring injuries which limited his pace and nullified much of his attacking threat, Owen struggled to make an impact in Madrid in a team full of superstars at their peak. Trent recently suffered an ankle injury that kept him out for a few matches in Liverpool's title run-in, but it is doubtful that it will have as serious an impact on his future career.

The crucial factor will be how Trent adapts to Real's playing style, learning a new language in a foreign country and dealing with the high expectations of the Madrid fans. Whilst Trent has an England colleague in Bellingham already at the club (as did Owen in 2004 with Beckham), becoming comfortable at a new club in a new city so that you are able to play to your full potential is a subjective matter.

Ultimately, I wish him all the best as, despite the tribal nature of football and fans' unrealistic expectation that every homegrown player should stay loyal to their boyhood club, being a footballer is a career and you are free to ply your trade wherever you wish.

The irrational need to hold footballers to a higher standard of fidelity is exposed by asking the question: "would you blame one of your mates if he went to work in a foreign country, leaving the city where he was born and company he'd worked for all his life, if he was offered more money?" Most of us would wish them well, and would make the same decision if it was us in their shoes. Football should be no different.

Some people might be wondering why I care so much about the genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing in Palestine. The truth is I don't need a specific reason, other than being a human being, but there is also a very personal motivation behind my interest in the plight of the Palestinians.

In 1998, whilst I was studying for a law degree at the University of Bristol, I was given the opportunity to switch to an LLB with European Legal Studies and spend a year abroad at a university in Europe as part of the ERASMUS programme. Having passed A-Levels in French and Spanish I had the option of choosing a university in France or Spain for my ERASMUS year abroad but, despite being more proficient in French, I chose to spend the third year of my degree in Barcelona.

I had fallen in love with the city having been to the Olympic Games in 1992, and also visited Barcelona whilst on an exchange trip to Spain in 1996. The architecture, cuisine, Spanish lifestyle (and girls) were all very attractive to a young, culturally-curious English boy, so choosing to spend a year studying at L'Universitat de Barcelona was a no-brainer for me.

I flew to Barcelona in September 1996, excited about the adventure that lay ahead, but also nervous about going to live and study in a foreign city in a language I was less than comfortable in. As one of the latest arrivals of the ERASMUS students joining for that academic year I was fortunate to get a room in the student's residence in Badalona, a small town on the outskirts of the city.

Upon arrival at the apartment I was greeted by my three new housemates, who ironically were all French (two girls and one boy), before they headed into the city to enjoy La Festa de la Merce, an annual cultural festival which had just started that week. They occupied the three single rooms in the apartment, so I was left with the one shared room which had just been vacated by a Portuguese student who did not fancy sharing a room.

I spent the rest of the day and night in bed, exhausted from the journey but also apprehensive about being alone in a strange town in a foreign country. However, my fears were allayed the following morning when my French housemates invited me to travel into the city with them to share in the festivities of La Merce.

We conversed in a mixture of French and Spanish and took in the sights, such as Gaudi's iconic La Pedrera (an apartment building sculpted like a wave crashing on the street block), and strolled down Les Rambles to La Placa Real to attend a music concert. I began to feel more at ease in my new surroundings with my new housemates.

After the festival was over I faced the daunting prospect of enrolling in my classes in El Facultat de Dret at the university, as well as registering for night classes in Spanish and Catalan to help me settle in to the course, which was being taught entirely in Spanish, and the city. Here I met many more students on the ERASMUS programme, including some from the UK, which made me feel less alone.

However, when I returned to the apartment in the student's residence every evening my French housemates had normally finished their evening meal and retired for the night, so I did not have much company. That was until our new housemate, and my roommate, arrived a few weeks into the start of the university semester.

His arrival was unannounced, so I got a bit of a shock when I returned to the apartment from class one evening to find a stranger in my room. He introduced himself in English (he couldn't speak Spanish yet) as Ashraf Muhaisen, a post-graduate biochemical student from Palestine. He explained that he was delayed in travelling to Barcelona as he was refused entry to Gaza after crossing from the West Bank as he did not have the "correct papers."

He had completed his degree at university in the West Bank, and was returning home to Gaza City to see his family before departing for Spain, but the Israeli authorities at the check-point would not let him through as they found something wrong with the permit he presented to then. He was subsequently banned from returning to the Gaza Strip for five years and could not see his family before flying to Barcelona to begin his Master's degree.

I will have to admit that at the time I was quite ignorant of the conditions imposed by the Israeli government on the people living in occupied Palestine, or even the fact that the Gaza Strip and West Bank were separate occupied territories on opposite sides of the country. Growing up in the UK my first memory of the Palestine cause was seeing a puppet of Yasser Arafat, the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), on the satirical TV show Spitting Image in the 1980s.

By the time I started university I had of course heard of the conflict between the occupied Palestinians and Israeli army, but I was unaware of the historical origins of the occupation of Palestine and resistance of the Palestinian people. However, all I could glean from British newspapers and TV was this was a complex problem which still could not be resolved after many years of diplomatic negotiation.

It was shocking to hear about how Gaza and the West Bank were isolated, and the way the Israeli authorities treated Palestinians trying to enter either territory, even if they were a student returning home to see their family after spending years at university. Ashraf was one of the most gentle and polite people I had met, so I could not imagine him arguing or aggravating the Israeli border officials to incite them to deny him entry to his homeland and ban him from returning.

I admired the way he described what had happened before he travelled to Spain without any anger or resentment, but on reflection I realise that he had grown up in the Gaza Strip where Palestinians were abused, discriminated against and persecuted by the Israeli authorities on a regular basis. For him it was part of everyday life that he had become used to, at the same time knowing that it was unjust.

Over the next three months we became good friends, although we both spent most of our days in different faculties studying very contrasting degrees, as in the evenings and on weekends we shared stories whilst our French housemates conversed in their mother tongue. However we enjoyed many parties and social events with our housemates, as well as the other ERASMUS students in the residence, including the infamous Cena Gastronomica where everyone brought traditional dishes and drinks from their home countries. Needless to say everyone who attended got very merry and rowdy, and we were all told off by the residence warden Senor Pep who lived on the ground floor.

In December, before I and the French students went home for Christmas, we hosted our own Christmas Dinner in our apartment, and I volunteered to cook a traditional Christmas turkey whilst my housemates provided the starter and dessert. I believe that this was the first Christian celebration that Ashraf had ever attended, yet he entered into the spirit, and even tried the turkey which I had marinaded in wine (whilst marinading myself at the same time.)

Due to a combination of starting late and cooking whilst drinking, we ended up eating Christmas dinner in the early hours of the following morning, then staggered to the beach to watch the sunrise. Yet Ashraf indulged our drunken antics, although they must have contradicted his Muslim faith and conservative upbringing.

After I and our French housemates went back to our families for the holidays Ashraf remained in Barcelona, as he had been banned from returning to Gaza to see his family and had nowhere else to go. Despite this he never got down or depressed, and was always easy-going and in good humour whenever I met him.

In the New Year I moved into an apartment closer to town with some English students who I had met in the Spanish and Catalan classes, but stayed in touch with Ashraf and my French housemates and continued to visit them. Ashraf began to learn Spanish slowly, and he explained to me how some Spanish words were similar to Arabic, for example pantalones (trousers), and even began drinking cerveza sin (alcohol-free beer)

I left Barcelona in the summer of 1999 and returned to the University of Bristol to complete my law degree. However, I will always remember Ashraf's quiet dignity and determination that, although he would not be able to return to his country to see his family for another four years, he WOULD go back and see his family in his homeland when Allah made it so. Which he did after completing his Master's.

I have stayed in touch with Ashraf for the more than 25 years since I left Barcelona, during which time he completed his doctorate and is now a biochemical research fellow at l'Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. When I heard about the Israeli government's genocidal bombing campaign in the aftermath of the Hamas attack on the 7th October 2023 I immediately contacted Ashraf to ask him if had any news about his family.

In December 2023 he told me that he had spoken to his parents, but that he often struggled to contact them as the mobile network was frequently cut off by the Israeli government, and since the beginning of 2024 he had lost contact with them completely. To this day I do not believe that Ashraf has managed to speak to his parents or anyone in his family in Gaza again or found out if they survived.

Whilst meeting Ashraf all those years ago gave me a personal insight and interest in the plight of the people in the Occupied Territories, regardless of whether I had met him or not I would still feel compelled to speak up about inhumane treatment of the Palestinians and war crimes being perpetrated by the Israeli government, not only since October 7th, but for the last 76 years.