Alberto Moreno has had enough of your shit.
During the first-leg of Liverpool’s Champions League qualifier against Hoffenheim in August, two men were trending on Twitter. In second place was Donald Trump, the president of the United States and the most-talked about person in the world over the last two years. Trending ahead of him was Alberto Moreno, Liverpool’s much-maligned left-back, who many fans of the club never expected to see play for the club again.
The Spanish defender barely featured last season, with Jurgen Klopp preferring converted right-footed midfielder James Milner at left-back. With Andrew Robertson arriving in the summer, and a number of bids on the table for Moreno, many expected him to leave Anfield.
However, not only is Moreno still at the club, he has become a regular under Klopp, and now he has a message for those who doubted him – which is an awful lot of people.
The former Sevilla full-back has said that he’s delighted to be back in the team after some tough times on the fringes of the squad, and that his critics can now “shut their mouths.”
“I couldn’t be happier with the way things are going this season,” Moreno told The Guardian.
“Things were bad over summer. The word was that I would be leaving and I should not try to stay, but at no point did I agree with that assumption. I wanted to stay. I wanted to fight for my place in the Liverpool team and that is the mindset I had when I came back for pre-season. I wanted to fight for my career and my future at this club. It is a club I love and a city I love as well, so all my critics, the people who were saying I should leave, should shut their mouths now I am back in the team. Last season was a bad one for me, I spent almost a year without playing many games. It reflected badly on me and my family, because they weren’t having a good time either.”
Moreno also revealed how he ended up getting back into the team. He approached Klopp, who made him no promises but encouraged him to keep working hard.
“When I came back this summer I asked for a chat with the manager. I just told him honestly that I wanted to stay and asked him what I could do to win back my place in the side. In return he was very sincere with me, very honest, because he said he couldn’t promise me anything and told me he was signing a new left-back. But the manager encouraged me to keep working and see how things went in the early part of the season and that is what I did. It enabled me to focus on working hard to get back. I had had offers from other clubs but at the forefront of my mind was always that I wanted to stay here.”
Whether you rate Moreno as a player or not, and many don’t, you have to respect him for earning his place back in the team after such a tough time. Some players would have been on the phone to their agent looking to get a move away at the first available opportunity. However, Moreno clearly has an affinity for the club and is a good professional. He may not be everyone’s idea of a Liverpool full-back, but is a committed player trying his best.
