Trent Alexander-Arnold on the brink of signing contract agreement

Trent Alexander-Arnold is reportedly on the brink of signing a contract agreement. His current deal expires in the summer.

Trent Alexander-Arnold's contract with Liverpool is set to expire in the summer. Signed in 2022, the two parties went into this season without an agreement in place.

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In fact, it's now very obvious that there wasn't even any sort of verbal agreement. The deal has been allowed to run down and January 1st triggered a milestone in negotiations.

At that point, Alexander-Arnold was allowed to formally discuss terms with non-English clubs. He's even allowed to sign a pre-contract with a club to join on July 1st.

There is one club that stands above the rest here: Real Madrid. They've been pretty open, through the usual media reports, about signing Alexander-Arnold.

They even tried to negotiate a fee with Liverpool before the window opened in order to sign the Scouser this month. The Reds rejected that - and rightly so.

There is essentially zero chance he will go anywhere this month. Not with Liverpool challenging for the biggest trophies around.

But the prospect of Alexander-Arnold leaving at the end of the season remains. It's reportedly got a whole lot more likely, even.

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Trent Alexander-Arnold nears contract agreement

Relovo journalist Jorge Picon suggests that Alexander-Arnold to Real Madrid is pretty much sealed. He puts the (ridiculously arbitrary) percentage of 98 per cent on the completion here, as per his Real Madrid sources.

There hasn't been much progress, he admits, but 'that's because there doesn't have to be'. In other words, both sides are incredibly confident of a deal here and can take their time.

Which isn't the news we want to hear. Hopefully, sources close to Liverpool can say the absolute opposite but we'll be honest, that feels unlikely at this point.

Everything that has come out of this saga from every angle feels like a defeat for Liverpool. Mo Salah and Virgil van Dijk talk about their contract situations in public. Alexander-Arnold does not. The former pair both put pressure on the club in public to get something done. The latter hasn't done that once. That is all certainly by design.

So at this stage in proceedings, we're bracing for the worst. A really cynical take on all this would be that the 'two per cent' remaining here is the signature and that it's deliberately not being signed because no one is ready for the drama that brings.

But maybe we're wrong. Maybe this is more nonsense out of the Spanish press. Here's hoping.

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