Real Madrid's Trent Alexander-Arnold has started four of 13 games as Jose Mourinho leans on Fede Valverde. The manager says the decision hurts him.
Trent Alexander-Arnold has a Real Madrid problem, and it has a manager's name on it.
The numbers, per BBC Sport: seven of 13 games this season, four starts, one assist (in a 4-0 win over Malaga). He did not play against Roma, Sevilla or RB Leipzig, and got stoppage time in El Clasico.
Mourinho did not hide from it. "When you build a squad with two players per position as your foundation and then have a third player take the field, that's something I don't like," he said. He decided the team needed Fede Valverde, and says "Trent and Dumfries took it well when I explained that it was a decision for the team and not against the players."
The "third-choice right-back" label is Jamie Carragher's, from The Overlap, not the manager's. Mourinho dismissed exit rumours, according to Goal. Before the trip to Racing Santander he said: "Tomorrow, Valverde will not start. It will be one of the other two."
Context: Real paid 10m euros (£8.33m) to get him early from Liverpool, and his contract runs to 2031. The injuries and the managerial change did not help.
My reading: four starts in 13 looks less like rotation than life on the margins. Mourinho can call it a team decision, but a team decision that keeps excluding the same man is still a verdict.
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Meanwhile at the desk
Carragher reads third choice as Madrid wanting Trent out; Mourinho has dismissed rumours Trent might push for an exit. Same bench, different readings.
Ten million euros to prise him out early, a contract to 2031, and four starts in 13. Somebody signed off on that, and I would like to know who.
