Arne Slot defends Trent Alexander-Arnold after erratic Man Utd display | OneFootball

Arne Slot is confident that Trent Alexander-Arnold's performance for Liverpool against Manchester United was not affected by growing interest from Real Madrid.

The 26-year-old is out of contract at the end of the season, alongside teammates Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk, and is yet to agree new terms with his boyhood club.

Alexander-Arnold is understood to be open to joining Real Madrid, with the 15-time Champions League winners known admirers of the versatile full-back. Indeed, the Spanish giants are understood to have approached Liverpool about a potential January transfer - a move that would take the Englishman to Madrid now for a fee rather than for free in the summer.

Attention turned to the pitch on Sunday as Liverpool took on bitter rivals Manchester United at Anfield, with the match finishing in an entertaining 2-2 draw. Alexander-Arnold struggled throughout the game, having seemingly been targeted by Ruben Amorim and United as they attacked down his flank time and time again.

Conor Bradley replaced Alexander-Arnold before full-time, with Slot questioned about the latter's obviously lacklustre performance in his post-match media duties.

"Trent has played mostly very good games for the club. Today was not his best game but that had to do with them as well," the Dutchman told Sky Sports. "Sometimes Ryan [Gravenberch] was not close enough to him so it was a two-on-one situation. I would put it more on the quality of [Diogo] Dalot and Bruno Fernandes."

He added in his press conference: "I don’t believe in those things [when asked if speculation over a move to Madrid had proved a distraction]. I think nine out of 10 people will tell you it affected him but I am one of the 10 that tells you I don’t think that affected him. What affected him was that he had to play Bruno Fernandes and Diogo Dalot, who are two starters for Portugal. Great, great, great players.

Slot played down suggestions that Alexander-Arnold was distracted / Carl Recine/GettyImages

"We have a fantastic player here with Diogo Jota and mostly he is not playing for Portugal. That tells you how much quality United have and if these players set themselves to a game, and that is what United once in a while do, then it is very difficult to play against them. That is more difficult for Trent to play against Bruno Fernandes and Diogo Dalot than the rumours there were during the week. That’s my opinion and probably everybody will tell you it had to do with the rumours. My opinion is different."

Alexander-Arnold did draw criticism from Liverpool legend and Sky Sports pundit Jamie Carragher, though, who admitted that he'd expected a quality performance against United.

"Trent Alexander-Arnold was really poor. It couldn't have gone much worse for him," Carragher said. "I expected him to put in a big performance, I thought United's system would play into his hands and he would have space to get his head up.

"He was poor defensively but we have seen that before. Today there was nothing going forward. He wasn't involved with the ball really.

"Only he knows if the talk with Real Madrid has affected him."