In Defence of Trent Alexander-Arnold, Part One

Being the first meditation on football and human sacrifice, in reference to Trent Alexander-Arnold and his contract situation.

When Trent Alexander-Arnold scored against West Ham United on Sunday 29th December 2024, he celebrated by jogging towards Liverpool’s away supporters and raising his hand to the side of his head. His fingers snapped open and closed to display the universally recognised hand signal for “people are talking about me—but to me, it is merely noise.”

He was most likely referencing a recent report from Marca claiming that Alexander-Arnold had already declared for Real Madrid. He was most likely reminding the red faithful not to believe everything they hear. Not least when the source is Los Blancos’ propaganda machine.

In complex and confusing situations, it often behoves us to orientate away from listening and towards noticing. Tune out the noise in our ear—explanations, rationalisation, bullshit—tune in to what is before our eyes. To disregard what is said, and regard what is.

The situation has developed since that match at West Ham. The Athletic reported that Real Madrid tabled a bid for a January transfer. Soon afterwards, the Liverpool Echo reported that Liverpool had offered Alexander-Arnold a huge contract. Then Alexander-Arnold performed badly in his next Liverpool appearance, against Manchester United at Anfield.

Consequently, the noise around Alexander-Arnold and his future has increased. Perhaps—whether he knew it or not—Alexander-Arnold’s goal celebration at the London Stadium is best understood as a prophecy. In hindsight, he should have used two hands. And probably not smile.

For suddenly, the noise around him became hostile. From heavenly heights (Anfield) to the depths of hell (the internet), there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth in his direction: speculation, amateur psychological profiling and body-language analysis, and impassioned opinion, much of it conveying rage and resentment. His goal against Accrington Stanley may have turned the volume down, but be sure it is still there, simmering, ready for the next time he underwhelms.

Alexander-Arnold has, reasonably enough, said nothing to indicate what are his future intentions. This no doubt has increased the noise. Silence and unknowing oft evoke such responses. The one who knows most about what the player wants has said least. Doubtless, the inverse is also true.

"I have been at the club 20 years now. I have signed four or five contract extensions and none of those have been played out in public - and this one won't be either."

Trent Alexander-Arnold, 2024. Sadly for him, he had no hope of this happening.

But is this not a strange state of affairs? How curious that the most uninformed and impotent are so full of passionate intensity, most of it unkind. How inexplicable that the devoted should turn so vehemently against one of their own—the scouser in their team. How strange that betrayal is perceived and anticipated merely based on one, admittedly awful, footballing display.

Amid an excellent Liverpool season—an excellence in which Alexander-Arnold has been a key participant—negativity suddenly escalated. Interesting. Let us assume such an emotional flashpoint could be instructive; a potential window into our individual and collective soul.

Such anger toward a football player! What is the meaning of this? What does this tell us about our human condition? And why is a brilliant and beautiful young man now the object of so much sound and fury?

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I. The Scapegoat Mechanism: such violence in the name of love.

The term ‘scapegoat’ is used relatively frequently in football. It happens when one individual is identified for unique criticism. In conferring the title of ‘scapegoat’, the implication is that the criticism is unjust.

A few recent examples from English football are Bukayo Saka, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Marcus Rashford, and Trent Alexander-Arnold again. Notably, these men all share a certain demographic characteristic. This is an adjacent, but different social malady in which football people (media, fans, etc.) willingly participate. It deserves further reflection which is beyond the scope of this meditation.¹ What is in focus here is another characteristic these three men share—innocence.

It is incredible that such a concept should be common in football parlance. It is spoken of in much the same manner in which we speak of expected goals or missing sitters. Perhaps we think it a mundane phenomenon, easy to comprehend and domesticate. “It means when someone unfairly takes all the blame. How neat there’s one simple word for that.” No doubt, but the term ‘scapegoat’ has a violent history. When we use it, it is probable we evoke ancestral memories of human sacrifice. We think we are chatting footy. In truth, we whisper a demon’s name.

The ‘scapegoat’ phenomenon comes from the Hebrew scriptures—the scroll of Vayikra (וַיִּקְרָא)—and enters the English language through the translation work of William Tyndale in 1530. It seems that Tyndale either misread some Latin or was making a bad pun when he rendered the Hebrew עזאזל ('ăzāzêl) as ‘(e)scapegoat’. The etymology of 'ăzāzêl is not so clear, but according to another ancient source, it was a fallen angel who invented eyeliner.

What is clear is that the Scapegoat was very much a goat, one with a sacred purpose.  This is the word of the LORD (in English):

Then Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and sending it away into the wilderness by means of someone designated for the task. The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a barren region; and the goat shall be set free in the wilderness.

The scapegoat’s ultimate task is to carry the community’s ‘iniquities’—negative vibes, bad karma, toxic emotions—into a “barren place”. Somewhere hot and dry, like central Spain. This is after a High Priest—someone initiated into a sacred order with authority to mediate the mysteries of God—performs a ritual. One imagines a figure like Michael Edwards, the High Priest of Moneyball, making sure all the spreadsheets align with the maximal probability of optimum xG and optimum wage structure. Thus is judgment for transgression averted—the wrath of Profit and Sustainability Regulations will not fall. The goat is led away by someone appointed for the task. Perhaps a Director of Football like Richard Hughes, or perhaps a player agent representative. The goat is set free. Free, like a Bosman.

The above paragraph is merely an interpretation, not an authoritative doctrine. But it speaks to the religiosity of football. This is why one should spurn those who consider following football a mere ‘hobby’ or ‘interest’. In football, we participate in and enact the most ancient of sacred dramas.

Various people have sought to understand the significance of these holy goats. Most were responsible for launching Christianity after an apparent early setback. Several centuries later, the scholar René Girard turned his mind to it.

Girard’s theory of the scapegoat mechanism is… a lot. Compelling, terrifying, complex, obtuse, and unscientific. A work of bold genius. The author of this post does not claim to understand it. Take everything that follows with that pinch of that salt, therefore. Nevertheless, in another sense, the author also feels they understand it all too well.

Thankfully, it is a theory that cannot be (dis)proven. This means no one is obligated to accept it as fact. Nevertheless, this does not mean it should be dismissed. Many abstract nouns cannot be falsified through scientific inquiry, yet we could not go without them.

One can think of Girardian scapegoatology as a tool. A pair of spectacles that can be used to render more confusing parts of the human experience more visible. Try them on, and see if the world seems clearer. One does not even have to wear them all the time—perhaps only for complex tasks like reading. But the spectacles make nothing clearer, by all means, discard and try another prescription.

But it is recommended to find something that makes the world clearer. If things are to improve, we need a coherent explanation for why we keep sacrificing the innocent to save ourselves.

Here is an attempt at summarising Girard’s coherent explanation and tentatively applying it to football scapegoating.

Once basic survival needs are met, humans subconsciously ask “What now?” The answer is provided by their social surroundings. Thus humans learn what to do but imitating what other people do. But on a deeper level, they also learn what to desire by imitating what other people desire. (This is called Mimetic Desire). Thus individuals within the community come to want the same thing(s). This creates competition, status games, envy, etc.

Occasionally, this intra-group competition threatens to boil over into violence. The envy becomes unbearable, resentment festers, or something goes wrong and not enough people are getting what they want to maintain group cohesion. Problem: intra-group violence is an existential threat if left unchecked. So how to reign it in? Solution: blame one (innocent) person for all the problems and then kill them. “It is better that one man should die on behalf of our people”. This seems to unite the group against a common ‘enemy’, and calm them down when ‘justice’ is served, thus averting the crisis.

Girard asserted that this process must be unconscious to work. Knowing how the trick works spoils the magic. This is partly why over time it could become encoded in rituals with mythological justifications—a way of preserving the process without making it explicit. Girard also wondered if Kingship emerged to provide a ready-made scapegoat victim. His theory ‘explains’ all sorts of cultural adaptations as solutions for the human need for a scapegoat. Innocent victims die heroically and God-Kings are eaten by their subjects to save the community or the world.

Girard also believed that humans had found awesome solutions to meet this need without having to sacrifice actual people. The genius move of the Hebrews was to sacrifice animals at particular times of the year to maintain the community. If done correctly, these rituals would keep violence and other disasters under wraps for the coming year. The genius of Christians was to notice that humans and animals are not the same, and therefore, unfortunately, a human victim was still psychologically required. Their great move was to interpret the unfortunate death of one person to account for all people across all of time. If believed sincerely, this event would keep violence and other disasters under wraps forever and ever amen. Unfortunately, true Christianity has never been tried. Until it is, we can never know if it would fully save us from our unconscious need for human sacrifice.

Thus, for the time being at least, football.

Theory holds that mimetic desire is neither inherently good nor bad, but a fact of human nature. It can have pleasant consequences, uniting communities around common desires. When others teach us what to want, we can love the same team, same manager, and same players in the same way. When this is working well enough, everyone’s mimetic desires are sufficiently met well enough to enable group harmony. But when it does not, the murderous triumvirate of envy, resentment, and rage emerge.

This would be why fans bicker and snipe at each other when the result does not go their way. Then to avoid intra-group conflict from escalating, they find a singular object for their disappointment: the owners, the manager, a particular player, the referee. The point is not that these individuals are perfect or have not in some way contributed to the result. The scapegoat must be plausibly to blame. The point is that these individuals are innocent of that for which they are (unconsciously) being held ultimately responsible—the universe not unfolding exactly how we wish it to and the subsequent surfacing of violent tendencies in the human soul.

Thus, when a high-flying Liverpool fails to beat a desperate Manchester United team to extend their lead at the top, the Liverpool Supporter feels insecure. Coincidentally, a few days after Real Madrid’s transfer offer for him, Trent Alexander-Arnold plays crap. He is a plausible scapegoat. That he performed particularly badly is an objective statement, but if one surveys the criticism one notices the statements being made are not oriented towards objectivity.

Compare the following. Statement A: “When United created an overload on the right, Trent was standing here, when it would have been more effective to stand there. He lost all of his duels against Diogo Dalot—that left Liverpool exposed.” Statement B: “Trent’s head has been turned. He couldn’t be arsed. Jogging around like his shit don’t stink.” A is grounded in objectivity: events, things we know happened. B is grounded in subjectivity: perception, interpretation, and judgment. There was a lot more of B than A towards Alexander-Arnold after the United match. The argument is not that either A or B is superior, but which do you think is more likely to function as a rationalisation for scapegoating?

Four separate examples of criticism towards Alexander-Arnold. Any of the statements made here might be true. But perhaps truth is not the reason why they are being said.

Being an object of scorn on the internet is doubtless preferable to having your heart ripped out to ensure the sun will rise again. Sports in general, football in particular, appear to provide a generally effective means of sublimating our violent tendencies. But what of the emotional and psychological cost, both to scapegoats and the ones who ‘kill’ them? Is this truly the optimal way to experience the beautiful game?

To avoid the horrific consequences of our propensity for human sacrifice, Girard advocated submitting oneself to a religious hierarchy (he was a Roman Catholic). There are many benefits to religion, but the author cannot in good conscience guarantee it will necessarily provide a means of not wanting to kill the innocent. They are still mad about footy in Roman Catholic countries, anyhow, and one presumes they still go in for a bit of scapegoating. As it stands from humanity’s perspective, God is dead, or at least absent, and pending his resurrection or dramatic return, we need to do something.

To that end, we have looked at the spectacle of football through Girard’s lenses. Did it make anything clearer? The aim was to prompt reflection, not conversion. Do with this as you will, and consider sharing your thoughts. Whatever they are, you will not be made a scapegoat.

Someone’s ex-favourite footballer.

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A Closing Remark

It is interesting to apply an obscure academic theory to the world’s most popular sport. It is neat to use intellectual theories can explain football. But the author sincerely intends for this to be more than intellectual entertainment. Could we then use football to understand ourselves, as part of an uncomfortable yet perhaps necessary process of psychological transformation? Not feel-good therapy, but “fuck, I need to change.”

Consider this and the following meditations an invitation. An invitation everyone is free to ignore. Nevertheless, the author needed to issue it, for their own sake. To save their soul from the crisis to come, they need more than a billy goat, an innocent victim, and a smouldering resentment towards a footballer they once loved.

Read the next installment below:

In Defence of Trent Alexander-Arnold, Part Two

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1. This is not to argue that non-Black footballers never become scapegoats. Only that players with minoritised characteristics—perhaps particularly pertaining to their ethnic heritage—are more vulnerable.