Arne Slot has been urged to make a ‘callous’ decision at Liverpool for the remainder of this season.
The 46-year-old has cut a largely affable figure in public during his first year in English football, although he’s shown a ruthless streak by voluntarily substituting players at half-time, as he did to Jarell Quansah on the opening weekend of the campaign in the win over Ipswich.
There have now been calls for the Dutchman to show no mercy to Trent Alexander-Arnold in the wake of the vice-captain’s announcement that he’ll be leaving his hometown club on a free transfer once his contract ends this summer.
Aldridge: Slot must start Bradley over Trent
In his latest column for the Liverpool Echo, John Aldridge has insisted that Slot must select Conor Bradley at right-back for our remaining three matches of the season and look to the future, rather than granting the departing 26-year-old a farewell tour for the rest of the month.
The former Reds striker wrote: “It’s a tough one for the manager now. The way I see it, Trent’s made his mind up. Bradley’s got to play all the games. You’ve got to be callous.
“We’ve already won the league. It will be strange if Trent plays. I wouldn’t like to see him [get] stick so I wouldn’t like to see him put in that position. Conor Bradley’s got to play; he’s the future now. He has to start these three games; it’s as simple as that.”
Slot likely to give Bradley the nod for rest of this season
We suspect that many Liverpool fans would much rather see Bradley starting at right-back in our upcoming three games than Trent, who’s decided that he no longer wants to be part of a massively exciting project at Anfield.
Although there’s a firm possibility that a replacement will be signed this summer (links with Jeremie Frimpong have gathered much momentum in recent days), it could also happen that the Northern Ireland international is promoted to first-choice from the start of next season, so why not start that process now?
Slot wouldn’t just be selecting the 21-year-old for the sake of it, either, as the Castlederg native has acquitted himself excellent at the highest level over the past 18 months, famously putting in an immaculate tackle on Kylian Mbappe in our Champions League win over Real Madrid in November.
The Liverpool head coach has shown at Anfield that he doesn’t hand out sympathy appearances like gold stars to primary school pupils. If he did, then Wataru Endo and Harvey Elliott wouldn’t have had to wait until last Sunday for their first Premier League start of the season, and Federico Chiesa would’ve played a lot more than 403 minutes by now.
Therefore, Trent shouldn’t expect to be granted the opportunity to be paraded in front of the fans just so he can have a fairytale goodbye – and judging by the reaction of many Kopites on social media, there’s not a chance of him getting one given the manner of his exit.
Aldridge is 100% right – Slot must give Bradley the nod at right-back against Arsenal, Brighton and Crystal Palace.
