English FA Premiership: Michael Walker talks to Liverpool's man of the moment Neil Mellor who has finally got a shot at the big time.
The best way to describe Liverpool's Melwood training base on Thursday morning is cosy. As a dense fog backlit by watery sunshine enveloped the pitches, inside golden finishing touches were being put to the Christmas tree in the foyer. The previous evening Tottenham had been knocked out of the League Cup by Liverpool, a north London double for the Reds after their rousing 2-1 Premiership victory over Arsenal last Sunday.
Liverpool's young man of the moment is Neil Mellor, scorer of the dramatic last-minute winner against Arsenal - his first Premiership goal. On Mellor's mind was how he can expand his moment into something enduring. Events at Liverpool later in the day at the club's a.g.m., though, reminded Mellor in football snug progress is rare. Mellor turned 22 last month and it has taken six years of youth and reserve team struggle to get to the heart of things at Anfield.
On Wednesday night Mellor was substituted after 51 minutes at Tottenham, and he said manager Rafael Benitez did not reassure him the substitution was "precautionary", so he would be fit to play at Aston Villa today. "He didn't say anything. And it was disappointing to come off."
Rejected by the club he supported, Manchester City, at 16, Mellor intrigued Liverpool during a short trial and has been banging in goals at junior and reserve team level at the rate of nearly one a game since. But, for all those goals he painted a picture of standing on Melwood's pitches season after season watching the first team train "over there".
A "poor spell" on loan at West Ham last season hardly inflated his self-esteem and maintaining confidence as he failed to break through at Anfield, while an air of uncertainty clings, must be the task of his life. As he said: "If you'd said to me at the start of the season that I'd score the winner against Arsenal, then I wouldn't have believed you. So I've got to build on that now. It's still before Christmas, I've got my first Premiership goal and I'd like a couple more before Christmas - certainly a few more run-outs for the first team before January. Then we'll have to see who he (Benitez) brings in.
"Confidence plays a big part in football and after last Sunday mine is sky high, certainly more than what it was when I was playing in the reserves . . . I'm quite a confident person anyway, I've got belief, and persistence is what every striker's got to have.I've got a taste for it now."
The chance for Mellor to taste arose due to the injuries to Djibril Cisse and Milan Baros. But these are sips of the action and Sunday was only the second time in his career Mellor started and finished a Liverpool game. Michael Owen, Emile Heskey and Robbie Fowler had blocked Mellor's path and the difficulty he faced convincing Gerard Houllier has continued with Benitez. Keeping going while offered out on loan at West Ham, or to Crewe Alexandra, or with Sheffield United waiting to buy, must take a toll, but Mellor has persevered.
"The manager feels I need to improve my fitness. I had a tendon injury and I missed pre-season. That put me behind and I'm still trying to get to the level I should be, I'm still not fully fit. But training with the reserves has probably made me want it more, to get training with the first team."
A little over three weeks ago, Mellor scored the two goals at Anfield that knocked the holders Middlesbrough out of the League Cup. Ten days later, with Baros having joined Cisse on the sidelines, Mellor travelled to Teesside for a Premiership fixture expecting some role. It turned out to be sitting on the bench for 90 minutes watching as Benitez fielded two wingers, Luis Garcia and Harry Kewell, up front. Benitez then introduced Steven Gerrard, Igor Biscan and Florent Sinama-Pongolle as Liverpool lost 2-0. "I was gutted," Mellor said, "really disappointed."
The day City let him go Mellor was driven home by his father Ian - a former City player - and self-pity would have been an understandable reaction. Besides, being "a grammar school boy", Mellor had alternatives the majority of football's unloved teenagers do not.
"I was absolutely gutted . . . I said: 'Right, I may as well get on with my education'. That was about November and then in January Liverpool offered me a trial. I scored the winner against United. To score against United was a good feeling - Mancunians aren't always accepted by Liverpudlians but as a City fan to score against United, they seemed to accept me. Then in the next game I scored a hat-trick against Newcastle. I thought: 'I can always go back into education, I can't always go back into football'."
So Mellor has already had moments. Now it is about repeating them. "Obviously Sunday was a special moment for me," he said. "I didn't realise until the next day how big an achievement it was, until I saw all the papers. But I'm not stupid, I'm not going to get carried away."
Guardian Service
