TRENT’S SET ON BEING A LEGEND
Clean sweep at 23 fuels dream to join Reds icons
Motivation is to win them all again
THE Tweet was simple from Trent Alexander-Arnold. It read: “Completed the set”.
The set being the Premier League, Champions League, League Cup, World Club Cup, UEFA Super Cup and now the FA Cup.
All by the age of 23. It is truly remarkable. But he is not stopping there. There are still two more up for grabs this season, for a start.
But Alexander-Arnold is thinking long term. He is contemplating legendary status.
The right-back scored in the shoot-out as Liverpool overcame Chelsea in an FA Cup final that was hard-fought and arduous.
But, as he stood speaking in the bowels of Wembley Stadium, Alexander-Arnold had little of his hunger stifled after adding the only remaining major club gong missing from his collection.
“It feels special,” he said. “Growing up you never think you will win all these trophies.
“You see legendary players who do that and you think it is unbelievable.
“To be able to say I have done that at such a young age is a dream come true and it is motivation to go on and carry on winning more trophies.
“Hopefully, there are a lot more trophies to come. The motivation is to win them all again and keep winning and keep adding to the trophy cabinet.”
Around the corner from Anfield, there is a mural of the defender on the side of a house.
A legend on Merseyside already, the local lad who grew up a stone’s throw from the club’s old Melwood training base has bigger ambitions.
Alexander-Arnold wants to be an icon everywhere, though, it seems.
“Days like this help me,” Alexander-Arnold said when asked about how he keeps his hunger. “I think it comes from within and thinking about what I want my legacy to be and where I think my potential is as a player. The sky is the limit really so I want
to carry on and push on and never be satisfied.
“I will keep my head down, try to win more trophies and hopefully at the end of my career I can be proud of what I have done.”
The defender has a trophy collection some clubs would be happy with. He was one of the star performers in Saturday’s final.
Defensively he was as important as he was going forward, two big tackles to deny Christian Pulisic and Marcos Alonso at crucial times in the 90 minutes. He put away his penalty and when Cesar Azipilicueta and Sadio Mane missed, it came down to Alisson denying Mason Mount before Kostas Tsimikas scored the winner. It is five-and-half years since Alexander-Arnold made his Liverpool debut and he has won everything there is for his club, aside from the lesser European competitions.
“Five years ago if anyone had told me I would achieve what I have achieved I don’t know what I would have said,” he added. “It is very special and, hopefully, in five more years I am in an even better place than I am now.
“It has not gone too bad so far. Five or 10 years’ time and we will hopefully be talking about bigger and better things.”