Not just Trent: £140k-per-week flop's Liverpool story now looks finished
Liverpool’s victory over Leicester City on Sunday put Arne Slot within touching distance of the Premier League title.
The trophy’s plaque will be engraved with Liverpool’s name for the second time in its modern format, and no mistake. To fall now would be inconceivable.
Leicester put up a good fight but failed to prevent their relegation to the Championship, and there was one man who stepped up to force the three points in the Reds’ favour.
Trent Alexander-Arnold’s future is up in the air, and the scriptwriters will be delighted with their decision to make it him who scored the winning goal at the weekend.
Alexander-Arnold's big moment
Just 15 minutes from time, Leicester had succeeded in frustrating Liverpool and keeping it goalless at the King Power Stadium.
But then Slot brought Alexander-Arnold on, making his first appearance since being forced off with an ankle injury against PSG in early March.
A scramble in the box led to the Scouser in Liverpool’s team collecting from the left and curling a powerful strike past the Foxes defences. Chaos ensued.
But, the celebration felt charged with something deeper, a pure outpouring of emotion that maybe welled from Alexander-Arnold’s knowledge that such moments will be few and far between in a Liverpool jersey.
Real Madrid are confident that they will claim the Liverpool man’s signature when his contract expires this summer. And Trent’s celebration in hanging his shirt on the corner post felt, in a way, like he was hanging it up.
There’s no doubt all of a Liverpool persuasion want their vice-captain to stay, but it looks like Madrid’s inimitable pedigree at the top of the European game is going to hold sway here.
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However, Trent’s not the only high-profile Liverpool star set to depart this summer. There’s another whose fate appears sealed – if it wasn’t before – following Sunday’s events.
Big-money Liverpool star now looks finished
After three seasons, Darwin Nunez still hasn’t reached even the outer rim of the area he should be in at Liverpool, and Fabrizio Romano has been banging the same drum in recent months that he will indeed be sold this summer.
It’s a rueful scenario. Nunez is a likeable and hard-working player, joining Liverpool from Benfica in a club-record £85m deal in 2022 to much fanfare.
But, now aged 25, his development has been minimal, and it’s time for a change, with the Reds overreliant on Mohamed Salah’s incredible output to get them over the line this summer.
At the root of it, Nunez simply doesn’t play enough under Slot’s wing. He’s only started once in the Premier League since Boxing Day, with a seven-goal return across all competitions hardly aligning with the lofty figure paid for his services. Against Leicester, the £140k-per-week striker didn’t even make it off the bench.
But from his struggle, the fruits of something new could blossom.
Without Nunez’s sale, the signing of a big-money replacement at number nine is precluded. The £150m-rated Alexander Isak might be out of reach, but the market is rich with attacking potential and Michael Edwards and Richard Hughes know their way around an astute deal.
Liverpool, in other words, are in good hands, but must cash in on their record buy, cutting their losses as it were, if Slot is to really put his own stamp on his team and defend his title with confidence next season.
Is it a bit presumptuous to name Liverpool champions? Arsenal are still in the race, after all. But it would take the mother of all collapses for Anfield to fall now, consigning themselves to one of sports’ great mess-ups.
Liverpool will rejoice in having struck gold, one year after Jurgen Klopp decided to call it a day, but the struggles of Manchester City and Arsenal’s injury-rotten luck cannot be relied on next year, and neither can Nunez.
Across his first two Premier League campaigns, in Klopp’s system, the Uruguay international was all energy and impetus. He was a thorn in Liverpool’s opponents’ sides. But the clinical edge wasn’t there. It was decidedly lacking, in fact.
With Slot at the helm, he’s regressed further still, not so much profligate as profitless in even finding opportunities to strike on goal for the Premier League’s runaway leaders.
Matches (starts)
29 (19)
36 (22)
25 (8)
Goals
9
11
5
Assists
3
8
4
Shots (on target)*
2.9 (1.3)
3.0 (1.3)
1.2 (0.5)
Big chances missed
20
27
6
Key passes*
1.0
0.9
0.4
Dribbles (success)*
0.6 (49%)
0.4 (43%)
0.3 (40%)
Tackles + interceptions*
0.5
0.7
0.8
Duels (won)*
2.8 (38%)
2.4 (38%)
2.2 (37%)
Though his defensive metrics are actually as good as they’ve ever been, this hardly compensates for Nunez’s lack of potency or indeed his declining output in ball-striking and creative pursuits.
Nunez has been an insoluble problem for two of the game’s finest contemporary managers, now, and there’s only one route out as he thrashes against the enclosing walls on Merseyside.
Nunez’s three-year stint at Liverpool hasn’t worked out. And yet, he won the Carabao Cup last season, registering 32 goal contributions in all competitions. He’s going to leave with a Premier League winner’s medal draped around his neck.
That two-goal cameo against Brentford in January, both goals struck in stoppage time.
A momentous result, one which allowed Slot’s side to capitalise on Arsenal’s shock defeat to West Ham United a day before and create significant space at the top of the table.
It was, in many ways, a watershed moment in the title battle, the first time rival resignation surfaced, Liverpool moving six points clear with a game in hand.
Perhaps, when we revisit this halycon era in the years to come, we will remember Nunez fondly, an erratic and mercurial talent who played his part through an important period.
But he has to be sold, having scarcely featured in the startling line-up under Slot’s wing this year. He has to be sold, paving the way for someone else to have a shot at centre-forward. Have a shot and score.
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1 ByAngus Sinclair Apr 19, 2025