Liverpool coach Barry Lewtas has been blown away by Arthur Melo’s willingness to turn out for the club’s Under-21’s against Leicester City.
The Reds first team played out a pretty dismal 0-0 draw at Crystal Palace on Saturday evening.
The club’s Under-21’s were also in action though and racked up a huge 7-1 win over Leicester.
Ben Doak grabbed the headlines with a brace whilst there were also goals for Bobby Clark, Billy Koumetio, Max Woltman and Layton Stewart.
The big surprise from that game arrived before kick off as midfielder Arthur Melo started for the Liverpool Under-21’s.
The Juventus loanee is trying to ramp up his return from injury and decided to drop into the Under-21’s to pick up 90 valuable minutes.
Liverpool Under-21 boss Barry Lewtas was pretty much blown away, telling the Liverpool Echo that Arthur’s decision was ‘brilliant’.
Lewtas noted that Arthur has enjoyed a ‘fantastic career’ but showed ‘unbelievable humility’ by offering himself up to play for the Under-21’s.
“It’s brilliant, really,” said Lewtas. “We knew yesterday he was going to play. Look at Arthur, he’s had a fantastic career, played at some top clubs and played with some top players and at the minute is just finding his way back from injury. If we can help, I think it’s a compliment to the way we play that we can give some senior players an opportunity, as well as some of the younger ones. He really adds something to us because he’s got a lot of quality and you could see today when we were playing through Leicester Arthur played a big part in that.”
It’s great for our lads to see someone of that level working his way back to fitness and is willing to come down and play. I think it shows unbelievable humility. It shows someone who is desperate to get back fit, get playing and find rhythm because he wants to try and play. I think it reveals an awful lot of character,” he added.
ARTHUR MELO STILL FIGHTING FOR LIVERPOOL FUTURE
We can probably all accept at this point that Arthur was a desperation signing for Liverpool back on the final day of the summer transfer window.
The Brazilian was out of favour at Juve and was available for loan, so Liverpool – faced with a number of midfield injuries – took a punt on him.
Sadly, injuries have been a problem and Arthur has only played once for Liverpool.
The assumption is that Arthur will return to Juventus this summer and Liverpool won’t chase a permanent move.
