The humble surrounds of the Crown Oil Arena are undoubtedly not what Arthur Melo was envisaging when he signed on the dotted line for Liverpool at the start of the month.
But there was no place the on-loan midfielder would rather have been on Tuesday evening as he attempts to get up to speed at his new club.
"I don't think he knew where we were going, but he knew we had a game!" laughs Liverpool under-21 coach Barry Lewtas when speaking to the ECHO. "But he wanted to play 100%, that is very clear. From what I've been told, Arthur asked to play."
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With Arthur arriving at Anfield from Juventus having not played a game of any sort since May 11, improving fitness and match sharpness has been the priority for the 26-year-old midfielder.
And having appeared for 90 minutes for the U21s in their Premier League 2 win at Leicester City on Saturday, the Brazil international came through just over an hour as one of two permitted overage players in a young Reds side beaten 1-0 at Rochdale in the EFL Trophy group stage.
"Arthur has been in over the international break to play games and build up his fitness," says Lewtas. "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.
"He first trained with us on Friday. He trained with the first team, and then he had a session with us for the team that was going to play against Leicester. He'll do a little work with us during the international break."
Lewtas believes Arthur's presence is having a positive effect on Liverpool's Academy players. "We get really good access with the boys training with the first team an awful lot, but it's a little bit different when you put the shirt on and you're playing alongside someone who has done it properly," he says. "Against Leicester, you could see the professional he is. So it's a real good experience for us."
There was further first-team presence in the starting line-up at Rochdale with 17-year-old Stefan Bajcetic impressing in defensive midfield before being replaced alongside Arthur on 62 minutes.
"They were brilliant," adds Lewtas. "They wanted to play a little bit more, to be fair to them. I thought Stefan was excellent. As a number six, we were able to play through him, I thought we built really well.
"Obviously Arthur and Stefan will grab the headlines but Dominic Corness wasn't the weak link in there. We had three ball-playing midfielders, and Dominic dropping to the sides, I thought he was superb. He was at the hub of how we built and from a midfield point of view, we were really good."
With Liverpool missing a host of players through international commitments - evidenced by 33-year-old Jay Spearing, now a coach with the U18s, replacing Arthur from the bench - a makeshift side was disrupted further when Jake Cain pulled out in the warm-up due to a rib injury. His replacement, the in-form U18 striker Lewis Koumas, stepped in on the right flank, joining Luca Stephenson and James McConnell - both midfielders - in impressing while out of position.
"Luca was excellent at centre-back," says Lewtas. "He's a good footballer, he understands the game and dealt with a couple of senior number nines really well. James is an attacking midfielder, so to play him at right-back against an out-and-out wide player, I thought he did ever so well.
"Louie did well given he'd only been told in the warm-up that he was playing. I was a little bit worried because we had players in different positions, and you hope it comes together but I thought we did well."
The young Reds were within eight minutes of a penalty shoot-out when Rochdale substitute Tahvon Campbell netted despite looking suspiciously offside, shortly before visiting centre-back Oludare Olufunwa was sent off for conceding a penalty saved by Luke Hewitson.
And of the game, Lewtas says: "I'm really disappointed actually. Rochdale started great but we weathered that storm. I thought we were really good, but we probably weren't quite able to make up the distance from building up play to attacking, we couldn't get enough bodies around the ball.
"I don't want to sound like sour grapes, but I've looked at their goal again and it is borderline offside, it looks more off than on, and then you get the red card as well. It just feels sometimes you don't get the rub of the green when you're the younger side, but we played well."
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