Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
I SAW TRENT AGED SIX ...HE WAS THAT GOOD, I THOUGHT HE’D COME TO WRONG ACADEMY! IAN BARRIGAN EXCLUSIVE
Liverpool’s head of pre-academy recruitment
BY
IAN BARRIGAN vividly remembers the first time he saw a six-year-old Trent Alexander-Arnold play football.
Though Liverpool’s head of pre-academy recruitment would have liked his first encounter with the youngster’s mother Diane to have gone slightly better.
He said: “He came to our development centre in Norris Green and I thought, ‘This kid is unbelievable!’.
“I thought they’d sent him to the wrong place and he should have been at the main academy, so I went up to his mother and said, ‘Excuse me, are you sure you’re at the right place?’.
“She says I kept going back asking his name and his age, checking his birthday because he was that good.
“And she thought, ‘If this jobsworth comes up to me again, I’m leaving!’.”
Barrigan (above) has since formed a tight bond with the AlexanderArnold family during their son’s subsequent journey to Liverpool stardom.
It was Trent who ensured his mentor had tickets for both of his Champions League Final appearances, as well as the showpiece fixture of the Club World Cup in Qatar.
Barrigan isn’t happy to stop there, though, and has been key to the growing presence of what he describes as a “Scouse heartbeat” in Jurgen Klopp’s squad, comprising Alexander-Arnold, Curtis Jones and, most recently, Tyler Morton. Not since the late 90s, when Steve McManaman and Robbie Fowler were being followed into the first team by Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher, has local influence on the first team been so evident.
And the pre-academy trio of Barrigan, Steve Gorst and James Williams – as well as their team of 35 scouts – deserve plenty of credit.
Asked what qualities they most value, Barrigan replied: “Pace, agility, general domination of the game, that’s what we look for – kids who dominate the game, kids who’ve always got the ball.
“Remember when you were a kid and there’s always that one ballgreed in the playground? We’re looking for him. And I can look a parent in the eye now and say, ‘If you sign for Liverpool, we can take you to the Champions League’ – because we’ve done it.”
But why is the path from the academy to the Anfield first team being walked with increasing frequency of late?
Barrigan added: “I think you’ve got to give credit to [academy chief] Alex Inglethorpe, the coaches that have gone before like Neil Critchley, Pep Lijnders, Steven Gerrard and Michael Beale.
“Then, obviously, the manager. Trent made his debut at Old Trafford, we started this season off against Chelsea and he’s put Harvey Elliott in.
“The manager doesn’t look at your birth certificate – he just looks at your ability.”