When news broke last week that Trent Alexander-Arnold was in advanced discussions with Real Madrid to join the club for what we can safely assume will be one of the biggest contracts ever paid to a right back, Liverpool fans played all of the hits.
They photoshopped a picture of Wataru Endo onto the brick-wall mural of Alexander-Arnold in the city. They joked about how the corner against Barcelona wasn't even taken that quickly. They convinced themselves that, actually, yeah, he really can't defend. They consoled themselves by saying that there will never be another Steven Gerrard.
Those were the tame responses. Others criticized Alexander-Arnold for negotiating with another team while he was still playing for Liverpool -- even though the practice is totally legal. Some suggested it was a disgrace that Alexander-Arnold would leave the team without letting Liverpool get a transfer fee in return, and there was plenty of the typical "greedy athlete chases the money instead of the love of the game," too. As only sports fans -- and especially European soccer fans -- can, supporters sided with the employer, rather than the employee.
And well, the employers, Liverpool Football Club, are the ones who created this situation. After a couple of years with no one person in a position to consistently think about the long-term health of the squad, the club's three best players, TAA, Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk, entered this season with just a year left on their contracts. This was the situation when the current front office took over.
But what if there was actually a hidden positive to all of this?
Sure, it seems likely that Alexander-Arnold will leave his boyhood club at the beginning of his prime, and there's a very real chance that both VVD and Salah will leave the club this summer, too. At the same time, there's an established phenomenon in a handful of American sports: players play better when they have only a year left on their contracts.
Liverpool have a 99% chance of winning the Premier League -- even though they entered this season as clear third favorites after Manchester City and Arsenal. While surely none of this was done on purpose, could Liverpool have accidentally coaxed 99th percentile seasons out of their three best players by letting them run down their deals?
Should more teams be looking to "the contract year" to get more out of their players?