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Beth Lindop
Multiple Authors
LIVERPOOL — Andy Robertson remembers it well: It was the autumn of 2017, and three months into his time at Liverpool, he felt his Anfield career was at a crossroads.
Following his £8 million arrival from relegated Hull City that summer, he had started only two of the Reds’ first Premier League games and had been omitted entirely from Jürgen Klopp’s matchday squad on seven occasions. Unsure what more he needed to do to usurp Alberto Moreno as the club’s first-choice left back, Robertson marched up to the the manager’s office and knocked on the door.
“I was s—-ing myself!” Robertson recalls with a smile. “Nah, honestly, it was getting to a point where I had to say something. I have never had that confidence; I have always felt uncertainty. But wherever I have been, I have always just wanted to play. It got to the October time when the conversation happened; I just went into him. It wasn’t confrontational, I wasn’t having a go, and I think that is why the conversation was so good.
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“The first question I asked him was: ‘What do I need to do to get into your team?’ And he thought it was obvious … I just went in the next day and I thought: ‘Everything he has said to me, I am going to do. If I fail, I fail.’ But after that conversation, everything clicked. I took the attitude of: ‘I’m at Liverpool Football Club and I’m going to do everything I can to make this work.’ After that day, me and him never really looked back.”
That, it is fair to say, is an understatement. Under Klopp, Robertson became one of the best defenders in the world, a bona-fide superstar whose unerring tenacity on the pitch and affable nature off it saw him become a firm fan favorite, racking up 14 goals, 69 assists and almost 400 appearances, alongside nine trophies (2x Premier League and League Cup; 1x FA Cup, Community Shield, UEFA Champions League, UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup) during his nine years.
While teammates from that golden era have received more widespread acclaim and material adulation, Robertson has earned perhaps the most coveted title of all: “The People’s Champion.”
And, as the Scotland captain prepares to play his final game for the club against Brentford this weekend ahead of his departure on a free transfer, it is clear that tag means as much to him as any trophy.
“The relationship I’ve had with the people has meant the world to me,” Robertson tells ESPN alongside other media in a chat at the AXA Training Centre. “For me, and also my family and the wider family who have come down to games, Liverpool and Glasgow are very similar cities and they are very similar people with similar things that are important to them.
“I think that’s why it has been so easy for me to just fall in love with this city. I’m very fortunate that a lot of people in this city have then fallen in love with me. Obviously not all of them, I don’t think the blue side probably do!”
Robertson is a universally popular figure at the club and shares a close bond with many of the staff, some of whom joined him on a pub crawl around Liverpool’s Georgian quarter on a day off earlier this year. His eagerness to immerse himself in the city’s culture makes it particularly fitting that he has now been afforded a mural outside Anfield, completed by street art collective “MurWalls” this week.
Adorning the side of a building a short walk from the stadium, the artwork depicts Robertson alongside the words: “Born in Glasgow. Made in Liverpool.”
“It’s been an incredible nine years, but it wouldn’t have been the same without the people,” he says. “I think they saw a player out on that pitch who, if they could get a chance to put on a Liverpool shirt and play in a competitive game, they would play similar to me in terms of giving 100% and always being at it. I put a lot of pressure on myself to try and do that and I’m very grateful to the people for how they accepted me and how they took me under their wings.”
The truth is, Robertson has always had to do things the hard way. Released by boyhood club Celtic after being deemed too small at the age of 15, the defender worked as a cashier at Marks & Spencer on Glasgow’s Sauciehall Street and took a job in the ticket office at Hampden Park to help subsidize his lifestyle as an amateur player for Scottish fourth-tier side Queen’s Park.
In August 2012, Robertson took to social media to bemoan his struggles as an aspiring young athlete. “Life at this age is rubbish with no money #needajob,” read his now infamous tweet — a humorous marker of just how far he has come.
A move to top-flight club Dundee United soon followed, and after three years at Hull City, Liverpool signed him.
Despite a slow start on Merseyside — “Jürgen put me into a cupboard for four months,” Robertson quips — the defender captured the hearts of Liverpool supporters when he single-handedly led the press against Pep Guardiola’s formidable Manchester City side at Anfield in January 2018.
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Much like his viral tweet, the video of Robertson chasing after the likes of Bernardo Silva and John Stones in a 4-3 victory over the champions elect will forever be enshrined in Liverpool folklore, with current head coach Arne Slot admitting last week he had shown the clip to his players at previous clubs as an example of the effort required to make it at the top level.
“That was a moment in a big game against the best team in the world at that time,” Robertson says. “I think fans left that stadium thinking: ‘We could have a proper left back here.’
“That’s what I believe; I believe that was the game I finally belonged in a Liverpool jersey. The confidence that gave me and everything that followed, I finished the season strongly and then the next season I probably took it to another level. But that was the moment I really felt: ‘I belong at this football club, I am worthy of the shirt and I’m worthy of being here.’ That’s the moment it clicked.”
From that moment on, there could be no doubting that Robertson was an integral cog in Klopp’s Liverpool machine and, alongside Trent Alexander-Arnold, he would go on to redefine what it meant to be a full back in the modern game. Under Klopp’s tutelage, the Reds won seven major trophies over the course of the next six years, and at one point earned 103 points from a possible 105 in the top flight.
“We had an unbelievable environment to just go and express ourselves, to go and try and play with freedom, try and play with no fear, but also in our mind it was: ‘You have to work at 100%,” Robertson says. “That was always what the manager said. If we were at 99%, there’s a chance we get beat. If we’re at 100%, I don’t think anyone, whatever opponent we’re playing, they don’t beat us.
“And that was always what we did in training; the standard of training, the amount of tackles in that — if fans had watched training, they’d probably have been going: ‘Stop!’ I mean, before big games, we’re all flying in, and that was just the way we did it.
“We went 100% at all times and we never let up from that moment, and that was obviously from the manager, from the coaches, and I think then all the staff, the backroom staff and the people behind the scenes just bought into it. You just had the whole training ground that was so determined to try to achieve all our dreams and everyone was on the same page and we just made magical things happen thankfully.”
Liverpool were able to create further magic last season when they won the Premier League for the first time under Klopp’s successor, Slot. When the Reds clinched the title against Tottenham Hotspur at Anfield last April — a day Robertson regards alongside the Champions League final in 2019 as his most special at the club — it was hoped it would be the start of a dynasty under the Dutchman.
A year on, however, Liverpool find themselves languishing in fifth place following a hugely underwhelming campaign — although, barring some freakish results this weekend, they are likely to be spared the ignominy of finishing outside of the Champions League places.
Robertson’s standing within the squad has also changed. He is no longer an automatic starter for Slot’s side, with Hungary international Milos Kerkez having grown into his role as first-choice left back since a £40 million transfer from AFC Bournemouth last summer.
Honest talks about Robertson’s place in the team formed part of the discussion over his future and, ultimately, both parties decided that no new contract would be thrashed out. Tottenham were among the defender’s suitors in January and their interest could be revived should the North London club avoid relegation to the Championship this weekend. But while Robertson harbors no bitterness about his Anfield journey coming to an end, it is clear he feels he still has more to give at the highest level.
“I wanted one thing and I made it pretty clear that I am not ready to be a part of sitting on the bench in my life right now,” he admits. “I have always wanted to play games and things like that has not happened as much.”
While almost everyone at Liverpool — from Slot through to his players — has underperformed this season, it is impossible to tell the story of the campaign without acknowledging the unfathomable tragedy the club had to contend with last summer. Robertson was among Diogo Jota’s closest friends in the Liverpool squad, and the pair had spent time together at Jota’s wedding in Portugal just 11 days before the 28-year-old and his younger brother, André Silva, died in a car crash in western Spain last July.
“This year hasn’t worked out for a variety of reasons,” Robertson says. “We can’t hide away from it, and it is not an excuse, but what we went through in the summer, no team will ever go through; no member of staff will go through. I hope they never go through it because the devastation we went through, football didn’t matter. We didn’t care about football for weeks; none of us wanted to train. That was the reality.
“You were getting treatment from physios, and physios didn’t want to treat you. Do you know what I mean? That is the reality of it. As footballers, we then of course have a duty; we have to move on, we have to keep going and we managed that. We started the season fairly well, although it was still an emotional time for us. The Bournemouth game was ridiculously emotional with all of Jota’s family being there. I think in the 20th minute, you saw a real dip in performance after that because of the emotional impact that it had on all of us.”
It is a searingly honest admission, designed not to invite sympathy nor to absolve Liverpool of their deficiencies, but simply to offer a reminder that athletes — even the very best ones, like Roberston — are human.
The 32-year-old was similarly candid last November after he had helped Scotland qualify for their first World Cup since 1998. “I’ve hid it well, but today I’ve been in bits,” he said after a famous 4-2 victory over Denmark. “I couldn’t get my mate Diogo Jota out of my head today.”
Certainly, it promises to be an emotional occasion when Robertson leads his country out at this summer’s tournament in the United States, Mexico and Canada. Before then, though, he has the small matter of his Liverpool farewell to navigate, with supporters set to pay tribute to him and teammate Mohamed Salah during Sunday’s clash with Brentford.
“It means a lot,” Robertson says. “It’s probably more important for my family. That’s the way I’m trying to think. It’s more important for my kids to see that and experience that. For me, I’m delighted that I won’t be the only one doing it.
“That was my worry, being front and center of the whole thing. I’m glad that one of our Egyptian friends [Salah] might take a bit more of the limelight and I’m more than happy about that. I can just sneak underneath that.”
It is typical of Robertson’s down-to-earth demeanor that he would be happy with a low-key exit, although the Anfield faithful are unlikely to grant him that particular wish. His diminutive stature may have threatened to derail his career in his early years, but there is no doubt that when he bows out this weekend he will do so as a true Liverpool giant.
