Trent Alexander-Arnold didn't perform well against Manchester United on Sunday, but Liverpool fans made sure he felt the love when coming on against Tottenham on Wednesday night despite suffering a 1-0 loss.

Liverpool head coach Arne Slot named a strong team to face Tottenham in the first-leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final, but there was heavy rotation in defense. Full-backs Andrew Robertson and Alexander-Arnold were both benched in favor of Kostas Tsimikas and Conor Bradley, although changes were made by Slot in the second half with the game still goalless at the time.

Alexander-Arnold replaced Bradley, and the traveling Liverpool fans began singing in support of the defender. Liverpool fans screamed "The Scouser in our team," chant, making sure Alexander-Arnold feels loved despite his ongoing contract dispute.

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The full-backs weren't the only defensive changes, as Jarell Quansah also replaced Ibrahima Konate at center-back. However, he picked up an injury in the first half, leading to Slot replacing him with Japan international Endo.

Slot explained why Alexander-Arnold and Robertson were removed from the starting lineup before the game. "It's mostly to do with Trent playing so many minutes because Conor Bradley was injured," Slot said to Sky Sports.

"Now it’s a good thing we have Conor back who needs his minutes as well. You can see it on the opposite side with Robertson and Tsimikas. As far as I know, Robertson is not distracted by contractual situations. So that is not in my mind when I make decisions."

Alexander-Arnold is yet to sign a contract extension, and with his deal up in the summer, it's becoming increasingly likely that he will join Real Madrid on a free transfer. Speculation was at an all-time high before Sunday's 2-2 draw at home to United, and Alexander-Arnold gave one of his worst performances of the season.

"We were all disappointed, not only Trent, by the way we played," Slot said after Sunday's 2-2 draw. "First of all about the result, and parts of the game we could be quite satisfied with, other parts we were not completely happy with.

"That was not only Trent, there were more things in the game that we could’ve done better. Trent didn’t play his best game, I said it already, but that’s not for the first time in his life he didn’t play the best game of his career. He’s played so, so many games well for this club. Now it wasn’t his best, like for some others, it wasn’t their best as well.

"We just pick it up, start training again today because these players know if you play 50/60 games in a season, that once in a while you don’t have your best performance. Maybe we should highlight more how good it is that these players are able to play every three days such a good game.

"Apart from the game maybe not being the best, it was, again, an eventful game from Liverpool. All the games we’ve played in the last six months, maybe even longer when Jurgen was here, I got many text messages saying ‘what a game again’, ‘unbelievable last 10 minutes both teams playing fully for a win’.

"That is also part of our job, to make it an eventful game and that is what we are trying to do every game, mostly with the result of winning now it wasn’t enough to win it but it was an interesting game to watch."