Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
THIS IS ANFIELD MELWOOD
TAA: I dreamed of playing at training ground more than our home stadium
AS Liverpool close the gates on their Melwood training ground for the final time next week, one player in particular will feel the wrench.
As a kid, Trent AlexanderArnold lived just around the corner from the fabled training HQ, and used to clamber up the imposing concrete walls to get a glimpse of his heroes.
It was Melwood rather than Anfield that became his real motivation.
“Melwood was the place I always wanted to get to,” said the Kop full-back, who made his 100th Premier League appearance at the weekend. “I’d see cars going past my house on Queens Drive and into Me l w o o d , and it was somewhere I wanted to be.
“Anfield was always a special place for me to go to experience the atmosphere but, for me, Melwood was always my motivation, Melwood more than Anfield itself.”
The England star stayed in the f a mi l y h o m e , within a free-kick of the training ground, long after he was invited to join first-team training by Kop boss Jurgen Klopp.
Now, four years on from his debut, and many awards later, he is widely regarded as the best right-back in Europe. Long before Klopp arrived, though, those glamorous cars sweeping into Melwood fired T A A’ s imagination.
“I knew if I made it to Melwood that it would give me an amazing chance. That really was the motivation,” he said.
“I always had that vision of what it must be like inside those walls – who would be there, what the staff would be like. That motivated me so much. It was an amazing place in my childhood.” During the upcoming international break, Liverpool will move to a newly developed £50million training complex in Kirkby, which will accommodate all playing levels down to academy.
Klopp was the driving force, claiming that kids would be inspired by rubbing shoulders with first-team stars such as Alexander-arnold. The idea of being a role model and a leader is an attractive one to the 22-year-old (above, in training yesterday with Andy Robertson), especially in the absence of the sidelined Virgil van Dijk.
“It ’s s o met h i n g I have thought about – showing more leadership,” he said.
“I’ve made enough appearances. Now I class myself as someone who needs to step up in moments like this.
“When you are missing a leader like Virgil, it gives the rest of the back four an opportunity. If the rest of us can make sure Virgil isn’t missed, then that puts us in a good place. So far we’ve been able to do that.”
That maturity will be important tonight against Atalanta in Italy, where victory would put Liverpool within touching distance of the Champions League knockout stage.