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Liverpool defender Trent Alexander-Arnold(Image: Getty Images)

Steve McManaman has admitted that his FA Cup success with Liverpool is the most important trophy he won in his career - despite winning two European Cups with Real Madrid.

McManaman made over 350 appearances for the Reds after breaking into the first team in the 1990-91 season.

During his time at Anfield, the midfielder won just two trophies - the League Cup and FA Cup.

However, the England international departed his boyhood club at the end of the 1998-99 season to join Real Madrid on a free transfer, four years after the Bosman rule came into play.

But despite winning six honours during a glittering four-year career at the Santiago Bernabeu, McManaman has revealed that his FA Cup medal from Liverpool's 1992 success over Sunderland remains the "most special" of his career.

Speaking on The Athletic's Aldo Meets podcast, McManaman said: “These days, the Champions League supersedes everything because of the scale of it and the finances involved, but that first trophy is the one for me.

My mother and father were both there that day.

“My mother wasn’t there when I went to Real Madrid because she had passed.

So that’s why the first one in ’92 is the most important one to me.”

Nearly 30 years on from McManaman's decision to swap Anfield for the Bernabeu, Liverpool defender Trent Alexander-Arnold finds himself faced with a similar decision.

The 26-year-old is set to leave Liverpool at the end of the season when his contract expires and Real Madrid appear to be in pole position to sign him.

Madrid approached Liverpool on New Year's Eve about the possibility of signing Alexander-Arnold in the January transfer window but that was rejected by the Reds.

But despite McManaman insisting he wants the defender to remain at Anfield, he says he would "completely respect" Alexander-Arnold if he were to pursue a new challenge in the Spanish capital.

“I hope Trent, Virgil (van Dijk) and Mo (Salah) all stay (all three are into the final four months of their current contracts).

I don’t know what Trent wants to do but I certainly wouldn’t begrudge him if he does decide he wants to leave," added McManaman.

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“If he feels as if he wants to experience a new lifestyle, new language, new culture, I’d have no qualms at all.

It would be a huge miss for Liverpool but if he wants to do it, I’d completely respect him and be very proud, because he’s a local lad who has done incredibly well, which is what I love more than anything.

“Real Madrid are a bigger, more professional, well-run machine now than when I joined.