Liverpool and FSG say goodbye to the most bizarre transfer of the Jurgen Klopp era, as confirmed by his recent departure this summer

In many ways, the peculiar nature of Arthur Melo’s time at Liverpool sums up an unpredictable season for the Reds 

In what was surely the least surprising development of Liverpool’s most unpredictable season, Arthur Melo officially announced this week that he would indeed not be extending his loan at Anfield permanently.

“I will look forward to it next season,” Arthur told Goal this week. “It’s going to be crucial for my career and I’m doing very well.” I can’t wait to show this new version of Arthur. I hope I will have the opportunity to say goodbye to Liverpool by playing something, saying goodbye to my teammates, to the technical committee and to the fans who have been very good to me.

“Since I’ve been here [Jurgen] Klopp has treated me really well. It’s an honor for me to work with Jurgen. He’s one of the best coaches in the world, he’s always spoken highly of me, he’s an incredible person and the treatment has always been very good, elegant and special.

“Being able to train with someone like him always gives you a lot as a player and I’m sure it’s useful for what’s to come because you learn a lot from him. Now that I’ve recovered obviously I’d like to do more I can play but I can understand that the The situation now is different from what happened when I arrived because the team had other needs then and now but I have the peace of mind that if I talk to them and they tell me no one has any complaints about me, on the contrary. All of Liverpool in general have also treated me wonderfully and I have nothing but good words for them and a very special affection.”

It was a classy goobye message from the 26-year-old, as he may have had reason to suspect he might perform at some point after declaring himself fit following surgery in October three months ago. Instead, Arthur is limited to just three appearances in a matchday squad under Jurgen Klopp and hasn’t done so for more than a month.

In many ways, Arthur perhaps personifies the strange and peculiar nature of this entire campaign for the Reds. Here is a Brazilian international – whose two most recent teams have been Barcelona and Juventus – who failed to play a single Premier League minute at a time when Liverpool’s midfield was creaking so badly that it collapsed entirely in multiple places.

Instead, it looks like Arthur will leave after a year-long loan spell which saw him play just 13 minutes in the closing stages of a 4-1 loss to Napoli in early September. So how did this happen?

Arthur was first seen as a first-class stopgap by Liverpool when he was loaned out by Juventus on transfer deadline day last August. It was a deal quickly sealed after Jordan Henderson was sidelined through injury in the previous night’s win over Newcastle.

With Curtis Jones, Thiago Alcantara, Naby Keita and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain also sidelined at the time, sporting director Julian Ward held talks with Klopp after midnight to see who could step in to help a midfielder in difficulty on the day of the deadline.

Arthur, who had arrived from Turin with his agent, Federico Pastorello, was eager to join Merseyside in a bid to help a side who had had a stuttering start to their new season and kick-start their career, which was similarly leveling to breathe new life into it. .

A £4m loan fee was paid for his services, while there was confusion over a fee set at £33m to make the deal permanent at the end of the campaign. Liverpool have always maintained that there was no such deal, although Juventus have publicly shared that information, saying: “The deal also provides for the right for Liverpool to acquire outright the rights to the player’s sporting performances; the agreed fee for the final sale is €37.5 million, payable in two years.”

He appeared on the substitutes’ bench in a goalless draw with Everton just days after signing before his 13th-minute cameo at Napoli’s Diego Maradona stadium came the following week. He could be as good as he got. The postponement of Liverpool’s match with Wolves and Chelsea, due to the death of Queen Elizabeth II, stifled any momentum he had been trying to build after falling behind in terms of fitness due to a lack of a suitable pre-season programme. . Sources at the time said Arthur was “a month behind” the rest of his team-mates, but he used the gap in matches to play for the club’s under-21 side.

A 90th-minute run-out against Leicester was followed up a few days later by an appearance in the Papa John’s Trophy as Barry Lewtas’ U21s were entertained by Rochdale. “He really embraced it,” Lewtas said at the time, while Arthur’s professionalism and dedication to achieving matchfits were all privately praised by those who watched him closely.

With help from Catalan firm FisioBox, Arthur hired physiotherapist Adrian Castro, fitness coach Daniel Encina and nutritionist Joana Dell’Oro, all in a bid to get the brand under Klopp. It was privately hinted at the time that Arthur still had hopes of working his way into Brazilian manager Tite’s thinking for the upcoming World Cup in Qatar before his season was turned upside down by a serious injury in early October.

A muscle tear in a thigh picked up during a training session forced Arthur under the knife, with the operation keeping him on the shelf until February. An emotional message posted on social media and sent on New Year’s Day pulled back the curtain on some of the troubles she had endured

“2022 was the year I devoted more [to] off the field, trained more, rehearsed more and had more problems than I had on the field,” he wrote. “A year of a lot of emotional turbulence in my personal life, a year where the more I fought, the more things got out of hand!”

He continued: “A complicated football year with so many injuries, so many criticisms that I had to listen to in silence, without at least the possibility of exposing the truth [about] what really happened. So many sleepless nights from physical pain, so many days of waiting in hospital, the pain of waiting for the medical report in the hope that it wasn’t something that could prevent me from doing what I love most, playing football”.

He was then left out of Liverpool’s Champions League squad for the knockout stage as January arrivals Keita, Oxlade-Chamberlain and Cody Gakpo were all added to the roster and despite returning to training in early February , Arthur is no closer to a breakthrough in the Champions League. squad.

When he returned to the group, players like Thiago, Jones, Oxlade-Chamberlain and Henderson were fit again and ready for selection. The recent return of Jones and the decision to move Trent Alexander-Arnold into midfield in possession has made things even more difficult for the former Barcelona player. Despite being officially fit and ready for action, Arthur has been absent from the squads for the past seven matchdays and his Liverpool career, barring a sympathetic change of heart from Klopp, is already over. With Liverpool still chasing a top four finish, it looks unlikely for the Reds boss.

These should be his peak, so wanting him to rate long-term while looking to start his career elsewhere is completely understandable.

“I played against Liverpool. ‘I know what it’s like to be in the stadium and have the fans behind you,’ Arthur said on arrival. He spoke about being part of the he Barcelona side who were beaten 4-0 by the Reds in that legendary Champions League tournament, with the league’s last second leg over five years ago. the only time Arthur played at Anfield. That already says enough.