Mic'd Up: The Liverpool legend praised the club's season, hailed new contracts, questioned the 2025 Club World Cup
Jamie Carragher is delighted. After all, his beloved Liverpool have all-but won the Premier League. Two key pieces from the team – Mo Salah and Virgil van Dijk – have either officially confirmed or seem to be on the brink of signing new contracts. For a born and raised Scouser who has watched his team fall at the final hurdle in the Premier League so many times, football is currently very good.
He thinks all Liverpool fans are on the same wavelength.
"Liverpool are going to win their first title in five years, which is not too shabby when you think of the competition… Liverpool fans are absolutely ecstatic to win the league title," Carragher tells GOAL.
Not all is well on Merseyside, though. For all of the reasons for joy – Liverpool could win the league by double digits and wrap up the title with six games remaining – there is still a shade of apprehension. Academy product Trent Alexander-Arnold is reportedly on the brink of a move to Real Madrid this summer. That has rather soured things. Carragher, who stayed at the club his whole career, has mixed feelings.
"I've accepted it. The lad moves on. I'm not angry about it. I'm just slightly disappointed. But I can understand if Liverpool supporters are angry about it because they only see their club, and nothing else comes into their world at all," he says.
But Carragher doesn't exist in a Liverpool bubble. A pundit with an increasingly global audience – including his analyst role for CBS Sports and Paramount+, as well as an American-centric podcast, – he has a voice in all of world football. The Champions League remains as enticing as ever, he said, with PSG earmarked as favorites.
And then there's the looming Club World Cup, a tournament that Carragher is outwardly against.
"I don't see any situation where I'll be watching it in the summer," he says. "I'll be on holiday. I don't even think I'll keep abreast of the games. I might watch the semifinals or the final, if it's two really big teams."
Carragher talked Liverpool's title-winning season, the Champions League, and the impact of the Club World Cup in the latest edition of Mic’d Up, a recurring feature in which GOAL US taps into the perspective of broadcasters, analysts, and other pundits on the state of soccer in the U.S. and abroad.
(C)Getty ImagesON LIVERPOOL WINNING THE LEAGUE
GOAL: The obvious place to start – are Liverpool bad champions?
CARRAGHER: You could say the challengers are bad. I think that's a different way of looking at it. In terms of points totals and games lost, they are doing what champions do. They could win the league with five or six games to go, which is pretty remarkable. And that speaks more about the others, really, than Liverpool. That's more on I think Arsenal and Manchester City. Liverpool have got six points against City, they've drawn away at Arsenal, and still have to play them at home. I mean, they've only lost one away game all season. The points tally they're going to get is going to be pretty high. So, yeah, they've just done their job.
But what we've had in the last sort of four or five years, I think we've probably been spoiled a little bit in the Premier League with Arsenal the last couple of years, with City and Liverpool three or four years before that, them and City going at it head to head – and the titles going down to the wire. Whereas you look back in Premier League history, a lot of titles, certainly where Manchester United were dominating, they'd won the league with sort of three or four games to go. So I think we're probably just forgetting that did used to happen.
GOAL: There is some rhetoric that they lose Carabao Cup final, lose in the Champions League, so that it's somehow not a great season. You don't win everything, and it's not a great season? What do you make of that rhetoric?
CARRAGHER: I think that doesn't apply to Liverpool this season. And the reason I would say that is because Liverpool are going to win their first title in five years, which is not too shabby when you think of the competition. But it's Liverpool's second in 34, 35 years. So winning the league title is not the norm for Liverpool. So Liverpool fans are absolutely ecstatic to win the league title. But if we were talking about Man City being in this position right now, or maybe Manchester United of the past under Alex Ferguson, it maybe would feel a little bit flat at this stage of the season.
They were used to winning the league. You know, the league doesn't feel that special to them, because they do it most seasons, whereas Liverpool don't. Now, I want this to become in the future, if you say to me, in two or three years time, "Does this season feel a little bit flat?" or "Is a little bit underwhelming, you're just gonna win the Premier League?" I hope I'm saying yes to that, because that will mean that Liverpool have won, maybe another two or three league titles. We all take things for granted, don't we, you know, once you get used to something. But Liverpool supporters don't take the Premier League title for granted. I mean, we've been there on the last day, on the last few years, and lost it two or three times. That's social media rhetoric, isn't it? But from a Liverpool point of view, no, that doesn't feel like that at all. But hopefully it does in the future.
AdvertisementGetty Images SportON TRENT ALEXANDER-ARNOLD
GOAL: Speaking about feelings that real Liverpool fans might feel, it looks like Trent Alexander-Arnold is moving to Madrid. Happy for him? Maybe angry?
CARRAGHER: I wouldn't say I'm happy for him or angry with him. I'm probably somewhere in the middle, really. You're almost like, a little bit disappointed, really, because he's a great player. I want him to play for Liverpool. I'd love him to do what me and Steven Gerrard did, where he plays his whole career at the club. He's playing for a team now at the club that is in a lot better situation than what it was like when we were there with Liverpool. They're going to equal Manchester United this season in titles, and you'd have to bet on them actually going past them in the next three or four years.
Could you then go on and win another couple of European Cups before you finish? He might be a legend already in some people's eyes because of what he's achieved and what he's won for the club and the teams that he's played in. But just to sort of win with your club, I always felt that was pretty special. I mean, I never had the opportunity to do it with anybody else.
But, yeah, more, more disappointing as a local player that he didn't see this as the absolute everything. But a lot of players do see Real Madrid as the absolute. That is the top of the mountain for a lot of players in world football. Barcelona I should add in as well. They're the two most glamorous teams in world football. I accept that, and players have gone before. But when it's a local player, you probably just feel it a little bit more.
GOAL: Does it maybe hurt a bit more, considering you played with Steven Gerrard, who could have left a few times?
CARRAGHER: No, I'm not looking thinking, "You've got to do what Stevie done." I just think, when you're a local player, you do feel about the club a little bit differently to others, which is normal. And I think you get treated by the fans a little bit differently. Sometimes that can be a positive, sometimes that can be a negative. Now, you look at the reaction of the supporters about the three players not immediately signing the contracts, it felt like it was a lot more sympathetic to Virgil Van Dijk and Mo Salah than it was to Trent Alexander-Arnold. There's almost a feeling that, "Oh, we're lucky that Mo Salah and Virgil have stayed here their whole career, normally, those type of players go to Madrid or Barcelona."
And we almost accept it, but we can't accept it from a local player, because you're supposed to feel what I feel. I'm a fan. I don't think there's any club out there anywhere who's more important than Liverpool. And as a local player, you should feel that. Listen, it's difficult for any footballer to always feel exactly the same way as a football fan who can't see past their own club. A football career is a short career. You want to maximize it, whether that's through money or success or a different experience. I've accepted it. The lad moves on. I'm not angry about it. I'm just slightly disappointed. But I can understand if Liverpool supporters are angry about it because they only see their club, and nothing else comes into their world at all.
Getty Images SportON VIRGIL VAN DIJK AND MO SALAH
GOAL: You've said throughout the season that you thought that both Mo Salah and Virgil Van Dijk would re-sign. With Salah's contract, as a Liverpool fan, how happy are you? But also, in two years, he'll be 35. Are you thinking, that's maybe a bit old?
CARRAGHER: I think it's the perfect time. I'm delighted he's signed. It's delightful. I think Virgil Van Dijk will sign. And also I felt he would sign because I didn't think there'd be too many offers out there for them.
GOAL: Why?
CARRAHER: I just thought that would be the case. They also love Liverpool. But I just think the way the game is now, in terms of the way clubs are run, financially and directors of football. And I think when you think of the wages that those two players will be getting – which they thoroughly deserve, because they're two of the best players in world football – but looking at them and thinking "If they leave Liverpool, and you're Bayern Munich or Real Madrid, even if it's a free transfer, with the wages they'll be getting, would we not maybe rather invest that in maybe a younger player?"
So I did feel it wouldn't be easy for them just to go and sign for another club on the same level as Liverpool. They're too good of players right now to be playing in the Saudi League or the MLS. Van Dijk is still the best center-back in the Premier League And Mo Salah is going to win Player of The Year. So will they be the same player in two years time? Probably not, but they are still Liverpool's two best players, and Liverpool have still got areas in the team they need to address. So Even though they're going to win the league, the area of right wing and center-back, that can maybe be looked at another 12-18, months time, because as I said, there's other things to fix right now.
AFPON THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
GOAL: Simple question: who wins the Champions League now?
CARRAGHER: I mean, I've loved watching PSG and Barcelona this season, to be honest… I'd love to see PSG win, because I think it'd be a message to football really, about how they've gone about it – failed in terms of having all the big stars, and then they've created something where they look like a really good team now. So I'd love to see PSG go on and win it. They were brilliant against Liverpool. I've loved watching Barcelona, but PSG have never won it before. I think it's always nice to have a different winner, and the fact that they won't have won it without Kylian Mbappe, Lionel Messi and Neymar – and done it a different way – I think it's that that'd be nice for football.