U21s Boss Lewtas on Arthur: “He’s Been First-Class”

Liverpool’s U-21 team manager Barry Lewtas has praised midfielder Arthur Melo for his efforts during the international break. The Brazilian midfielder recently played 90 minutes with the U21 team against Rochdale over the weekend and played for the reserves again on Tuesday.

It’s certainly a valiant effort from Arthur to skip his off days to get up to speed with the way Liverpool does things and a far cry from previous reports of his immaturity off the pitch during his time at Barcelona and Juventus.

Speaking to the Liverpool FC website, Lewtas lavished praise on Arthur’s professionalism and his ability to set an example to the kids:

“Arthur has been in over the international break to play games and build up his fitness. That’s off his own back, so that shows his level of professionalism. He has been great with the lads as well. He has been first-class.”

“In training on Monday he was excellent, he really drove the lads and as a matchday minus one, it’s probably the best one we’ve had.”

“He wants to get fit, he doesn’t need a week off, so it’s come from him. He doesn’t speak Scouse and I don’t speak Portuguese, but I think you can tell from the body language. In the meetings we went through some extra things and cleared a few things up. He has embraced it.”

According to Paul Joyce of The Times, Arthur has also hired a physiotherapist, a fitness coach and a nutritionist to work with him daily as he looks to impress Jürgen Klopp and make his stay at Liverpool a long and fruitful one.

Most supporters have had the idea that Arthur’s only here for the short-term, but it surely wouldn’t hurt if he managed to play his way into form and help out with some of Liverpool’s midfield deficiencies. He’s definitely doing his bit, and hopefully the new environment and coaching can help Arthur get back to the promising player he was just a few years ago.