Andy Robertson Is One of the World's Best Left Backs - But His Story Is No Fairytale

When Jack Robinson was subbed on at Hull City on the final day of the 2009-10 season, he was billed as Liverpool's left-back for the next decade. At 16 years and 250 days, he was the youngest player ever to appear for the club in the Premier League, and bright things lay ahead.

About 250 miles north, Andy Robertson - six months his junior - had just been released by Celtic. There was no fanfare when he dropped four divisions to Queen's Park, and it took another three years before manager Gardner Spiers would give him his professional debut.

'Contrasting fortunes' doesn't quite do justice to what would follow, however, and by the 2015/16 season, the two were playing in the same league. Robinson, having made just 11 appearances for Liverpool, was turning out for QPR, while Robertson was helping Hull City bounce back into the Premier League.

Against Sheffield United, Robertson made his 100th league appearance for Premier League champions Liverpool. Robinson - once the golden boy in his position - watched on from the opposition bench.

The rate at which Robertson has exploded up through the ranks to surpass one of Melwood's great white hopes is testament to his attitude and application. He's been a Jurgen Klopp player since he first took to the field against East Stirlingshire in August 2012, when he was the loudest player on the pitch at a barren Hampden, and another big display at an empty Anfield this weekend summarised how a kid once deemed too small to succeed at Celtic became Scotland captain and one of the best left-backs in the world.

His story is an uplifting one, but it's insulting to suggest it's been a Cinderella story. Robertson had no fairy godmother who magically granted him his night at the ball; he's had to scrap for every break, and it's that upbringing that is the key to his success at the pinnacle of sport.

He's one of the most under-appreciated players in football at present, his dogged nature thrumming resolutely under win after win ever since he arrived on Merseyside. He boasts a 77% win record in his first 100 games - more than any other Liverpool player in history over the same sample size - and that's no pleasant coincidence.

Enough has been made of his energy and tenacity, but he is defensively immaculate, and only seems to be improving. Despite his consistently high starting positions, he is so rarely caught out - he has made just two errors leading to shots in the Premier League since the start of the 2017/18 season.

He has been involved in goals in 31% of his league appearances at Liverpool, keeping 51 clean sheets in the process, yet like Jordan Henderson and Roberto Firmino, the stats don't even come close to doing him justice. The best aspects of his game are his work-rate, attitude and mentality; the ones that those around him appreciate, but can't be quantified on paper.

Robertson's humble beginnings have created a fairytale narrative around him, that he is a kid from a Maryhill housing estate who wakes up every morning, sees a Liverpool player in the mirror, and pinches himself.

But that's reductive, because as the story of Jack Robinson demonstrates, talent and luck are not enough. There is no player who better encompasses the fearsome mentality that got Liverpool to the top of the mountain, and there is no better poster-boy for the recruitment strategy that has rebuilt one of English football's institutions into something worthy of its reputation.

"I don't think I'm a Queen's Park player that got lucky," he said last year. "I feel as if I'm a Liverpool player. I think I'm good enough to play for Liverpool, I'm good enough to captain Scotland, and I'm trying to prove that rather than looking back at that amateur footballer for Queen's Park."