If Alexander-Arnold was still the right-back Liverpool waved off to Spain in the summer of 2025, Johnson argues, Jose Mourinho would be picking him every weekend. Instead the 28-year-old is third choice at the Santiago Bernabéu and the subject of January-window chatter Johnson would like to kill off.

“I don’t think he’s the same player that he was because if he was, he’d be playing for Real Madrid and we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Johnson told Goal.

Alexander-Arnold has started three of nine La Liga games this season, totalling 265 minutes across five appearances in the competition, with no goals and one assist. In Mourinho’s current pecking order at right-back, Federico Valverde is first choice, summer signing Denzel Dumfries second, and the former Liverpool academy graduate third. Valverde started the position in the recent Clásico; Alexander-Arnold watched from the bench.

‘He could undo his previous legacy’

Johnson’s deeper worry is reputational. A reunion built on a diminished Alexander-Arnold, he says, would scrape at the memory of what came before.

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“I don’t think he’s the same and if he returned to Liverpool and people are expecting him to be the Trent of old and he’s not, then he could begin to undo his previous legacy,” Johnson said.

That verdict lands against persistent speculation about a January approach, prompted at Anfield by the right-back injuries that have slowed Jeremie Frimpong and limited Conor Bradley.

Carragher ‘would have him back’

Not every Anfield voice sees it the same way. On The Overlap, Jamie Carragher said he would take Alexander-Arnold straight back and leave the welcome to the Kop.

“I’d have him back. Give him plenty of stick, [because] I think he made a mistake. I think he made a big mistake,” Carragher told The Overlap.

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Carragher pointed to the same point Johnson had seized on: Alexander-Arnold is “actually third choice right-back for Real Madrid” at the moment, which to him makes a loan or a buy-back a shared opportunity rather than a risk.

Alexander-Arnold still backing himself in Madrid

The player himself is not pushing for an exit. Spanish broadcaster Guillem Balagué has said Alexander-Arnold has no intention of leaving Madrid and is waiting for his opportunity under Mourinho.

“He wants to establish himself at Real Madrid, so he has no intention of leaving the club,” Balagué told Goal.

Alexander-Arnold’s last La Liga outing was a 52-minute shift in Madrid’s 1-0 win at Villarreal on 10 October.

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