I wouldn't be fussed if we lost him to Real, to be honest.
While he's great going forward and sometimes has almost Xabi-esque delivery with his deadball deliveries and his crosses, he's also unquestionably the worst defender in our starting lineup - and that's including the holding midfielders that often have to do double-duty covering for his screwups.
In fact, he's even the worst defender at the club at HIS position as Bradley, while raw is arguably more dependable in most situations (.....which might be why Slot seems to love bringing him on for Trent late in games when we need to hold leads), and Gomez is bizarrely better at playing the fullback positions than he is at his natural centerback role.
It's not secret in the league that if you want to beat us you need a pacy winger who'll stretch the defence and hug the touchline as much as possible since Trent is so loathe to go wide to cover an open winger and frequently drifts to the center which is daft given how it unbalances us an creates so much space for opposition attackers to run into.
He gets skinned frequently, is often careless with the ball giving away possession when under no pressure and if he's not having a great game going forward, then he's practically a passenger.
Having said all that, he's obviously a local hero and some of our fans will hear none of the club letting him go - even though the more prudent decision would be to let him go and give Bradley a better chance to develop further and cement that position as his own as our rightback of the future while we try to get some decent cover for him.
It wouldn't surprise me if he left, claiming he really wanted to stay but the club wasn't willing to come to terms - only for it to later be revealed that he wanted a salary bump that the club (rightly) wasn't willing to meet.
Between the three, and despite the ages involved, I'd much rather we held on to Mo and Virg than Trent.
Just being honest.
They are both unquestionably more indispensible in their roles for the club than he is for me.
'I got told there's an English phrase, 'You don't win trophies with kids'. I didn't know that' ... - Jurgen Klopp
Stone-Cold Savage!
Bookmarks