After Real Madrid secured a huge 3-0 victory over Manchester City in the Champions League, Trent Alexander-Arnold’s post-match interview offered an interesting insight

Trent Alexander-Arnold has suggested Real Madrid were irked by suggestions Manchester City were going to “batter” them in their Champions League clash. For the fifth year in a row, City were drawn to face the Spanish heavyweights in the knockout stages of the competition.

Pep Guardiola’s side had already beaten Real Madrid at the Bernabeu this season, securing a 2-1 away victory before Christmas. However, in the first leg of their round of 16 clash, Federico Valverede’s first-half hat-trick secured a 3-0 triumph.

The Cityzens will have a huge mountain to climb when they host Alvaro Arbeloa’s side in the second-leg. After the match, Alexander-Arnold admitted he and his team-mates were fuelled by suggestions City were favourites, given Real Madrid’s inconsistent form in all competitions this season and the fact they were missing Jude Bellingham, Kylian Mbappe and many more from their line-up.

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The former Liverpool defender said: “Massive performance. A lot of the noise when the draw was made and leading up to this game, especially with the way we have been playing and results we have had.

“A lot of people expected us to get battered tonight. But it shows the mentality. It doesn’t matter what injuries we have got or players out.

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“This competition matters a lot to the club and as players we understand that. We go out there and they support us like that and anyone can win. We have executed the game-plan perfectly.

“We had confidence coming into this game. We knew our game-plan, we executed it and scored our goals very ruthlessly. The size of the game is the main thing.

“I don’t want to say that other games are less important but when there is so much hype around a game and so many eyes on it, you know you have to perform. When you play for a club like this the expectation is that you have to win.

“I am running out of words for him [Federico Valverde] as a player. He is undoubtedly the most underrated footballer on the planet. When you play with him you understand how much he gives to the team. He covers every blade of grass and gives his all. As a player the best attribute you can have is that your team-mates can always count on you and he never lets us down.”

After the match, Guardiola said: “I think we played quite a good game. I think we’ve tried to do our best and we could not create chances where Courtois could not intervene. We got to the box many times and when you were able to do that it means you have followed a good process but we didn’t score.

“Real Madrid has always been very dangerous but I don’t have the feeling that Courtois has played a great game. He made a parry from Nico [O’Reilly] in the second half but we have reached that byline many times – six, seven, eight times – so we’ve done a good job, we were just missing this detail.

“If you dominate [Real] you always have this feeling of them being able to run but my feeling about ourselves is we’ve done quite a good job. But because the score is 3-0 that is a little bit useless.”

City face Real Madrid at the Etihad Stadium next Tuesday evening. They will have to win 3-0 just to merely force extra-time against the Spaniards, who are currently second in La Liga.