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Former Liverpool defender Alvaro Arbeloa, who is now the head coach of Real Madrid Castilla, has delivered a brutal assessment of young center-back talent Joan Martinez, a player regarded as a huge talent at the Bernabeu.
The Spaniard has stressed that the young defender must significantly raise his standards if he wants to reach the first team, with Arbeloa, a promising coach, making clear the high standards that are required to make it at Real Madrid.
"Joan Martinez is a kid with a lot of talent, but he still has a very long way to go," Arbeloa, who left Liverpool in 2009, said. "He needs to train much harder, more focused, with more intensity.
"If he wants to be a Real Madrid player, he has to know the demands for that position are sky-high. What he’s doing now isn’t enough to be a first-team player."
Arbeloa played 98 times for Liverpool between 2007 and 2009 before he moved back to Real Madrid, the team where he came through as a young player.
He later briefly played for West Ham United and also earned 56 caps for Spain between 2008 and 2013. He retired from playing in 2017 and then moved into coaching at Real Madrid's youth academy in 2020.
Arbeloa is not the only former Liverpool right-back now in Madrid, of course. Trent Alexander-Arnold moved to Spain in the summer just a few weeks before his Anfield contract expires and was jeered upon his return earlier this month.
"I feel sorry for everybody, to be honest, especially for Trent Alexander-Arnold," former Liverpool midfielder Igor Biscan said last week.
"After giving so much to the club, and of course, he got a lot from the club, it was always a special connection, I would say. To end like this and to be like this, as it looked from the outside, is just not good for anybody.
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"But I think with the help of time, in the future, it will settle down, and people will realize that everybody at some point would want to try something else.
"There is no easy way out or simple, gentle, or sensitive solution for situations like that sometimes in life.
"So I think after a while people will realize, and then the next time when he comes back to play, I think the reaction will be completely different."
Liverpool.com says: Arbeloa, like Fernando Torres and a few other former Liverpool players, looks to be heading in the right direction in his coaching career. Xabi Alonso is in the main role at Real Madrid, and Thiago Alcantara is at Barcelona.
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