Liverpool are claimed to have offered Trent Alexander-Arnold a significant pay increase in an attempt to tie him down to a new long-term contract.
Alexander-Arnold’s future is one of the biggest concerns among Liverpool fans at present, with Real Madrid making a bid to sign the right-back this month.
While Liverpool turned down their offer, believed to be in the region of £15 million, the reality is that Alexander-Arnold can now legally discuss terms over a free transfer in the summer.
That adds pressure to contract talks between the player and his current club, with contact ongoing but no progress made as it stands.
However, the Mirror‘s John Richardson now claims that Liverpool have offered their vice-captain a new five-year contract worth £300,000 per week.
His current wage is said to be around £180,000 per week and only Mohamed Salah – on a basic £350,000 a week – earns upwards of £300,000 per week at present.
It is claimed that Real Madrid would offer similar terms, with it held up as a straight decision between staying at his boyhood club or joining arguably the biggest side outside of England.
“There have been no demands from Alexander-Arnold to be handed the captaincy,” Richardson writes, with Alexander-Arnold said to have accepted he would be “the natural successor to Virgil van Dijk.”
Whether this report is to be believed is unclear, though Liverpool are known to have been in ongoing negotiations with their No. 66 and his representatives.
However, Arne Slot is certainly still hopeful of retaining his first-choice right-back, using the example of Steven Gerrard turning down Real to make his point.
“I think there was one player [in the past] they would have really loved to have but he didn’t come,” he told journalists including the Liverpool Echo‘s Theo Squires.
“You know him better than me. So it has happened.”
Nevertheless there remains a real concern that Alexander-Arnold will depart at the end of the season, with Slot purely focused on the now rather than any ‘ifs’.
“These are all ‘if, if if’. My answer is that he’s with us and his full focus is with us,” the head coach explained.
“This is what you saw in the West Ham game and the games before.
“He’s in almost everyone’s Team of the Year for the first half of the season. That shows how much he’s here at the moment.
“That’s the only answer I can give you at the moment because there’s no if.”
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