While Alexis Mac Allister has impressed with a great start to the season, his contract situation remains indicative of wider club policy…
THE BEST version of Anfield existed on Wednesday.
An engaging game, a villainous referee and an opponent teetering on the right side of shithouse.
Matches like that quell the whispering doubts and groans which follow a misplaced pass and the general, overwhelming sense of woe is us.
Anfield has some lingering demons from 2025-26 in its system. There remains a strong sense of “oh, here we go again,” when something bad happens. There are far too many Liverpool players still being referred to as “you”.
Let me explain the context of “you”. It’s never, ever positive if someone at Anfield refers to a player simply as “you”, it invariably means that person has become an irritation in some form to said supporter.
Alexis Mac Allister was the subject of several “you” shouts last season. It wasn’t because he was at the scene of too many crimes. On the contrary, he wasn’t at enough.
The diminutive Argentinian should have been stood there – murder weapon in hand and confession letter written – on more than one occasion. The problem was he was somewhere else on a football pitch, hunched over with his hands on his knees, offering awful flashbacks of Joe Cole in Liverpool red.
Tactically, Arne Slot’s Reds fell to pieces last season. Nobody suffered more than the midfielders. The spaces became huge all over the pitch. Mac Allister couldn’t get close enough to foul at times.
The memory of three Chelsea players toying with him before Moises Caicedo’s goal at Stamford Bridge, or him being left in a heap requiring stitches before Man United’s first at Anfield still make you wince while remaining sympathetic.
For many, Mac Allister was a damaged asset who needed to be flogged this summer. Others couldn’t see how he’d ever be first choice in a Liverpool midfield again.
Yet, Andoni Iraola has included Mac Allister in his last three lineups, referring to the midfielder as ‘smart’ and someone who understands spaces.
The performances of Mac Allister have been exemplary. He’s back to his disruptive best, tackling, creating and knitting Liverpool’s play together under this new regime. His goal on Wednesday was another special Anfield strike that came when we most needed it.
The winner seemed fatalistic following Mac Allister’s comments in the buildup to the match, describing himself as “very sad” at not being offered a contract, despite now having less than two years remaining.
You can understand his frustration, especially when midfield counterparts Dominik Szoboszlai and Ryan Gravenberch both signed new deals in the summer.
Mac Allister, like every footballer, has entered that sweet-spot age of mid-to-late 20s where his next contract becomes pivotal to how much he financially sets himself and his family up for life.
Liverpool usually see this period as less straightforward. We’ve seen through the years that only elite players are given the highest wages in this age bracket, and in Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk it’s usually justified.
We don’t know what Mac Allister’s demands are, and we know Liverpool use performance data analytics to decide whether to offer a new deal and for how much.
That can cause huge variances and seem cold if players feel undervalued in a financial and emotional sense.
There’s no right or wrong answer here. Of every player who has left Liverpool in recent years with little to no contract length left, I suspect only Trent Alexander-Arnold and Luis Diaz might form lingering future regret.
Mac Allister is another representation of how we commoditise players, then get upset when they use their own agency to maximise self-interest away from our clubs.
Dressing rooms are complicated environments at this level. We can think that envy and resentment come from solely on-pitch matters, but Liverpool have created a wealth divide across the squad in recent windows which has undoubtedly caused issues.
Mac Allister made it his business to mention his contract. Even Curtis Jones bantering with Gravenberch that he “took all the money” on Instagram was somewhat telling.
It might be that Mac Allister, by virtue of playing well for Liverpool again, is serving his own self-interest by ensuring the bigger offers arrive for him in the next 12-18 months.
As ever, we care mostly about what’s happening on the pitch for Liverpool, and having Alexis Mac Allister getting back to his best is undoubtedly a positive, whatever his motivations are.
Most importantly, nobody is referring to him as “you” anymore.
