\n<\/p>\n
Lucas Leiva overcame criticism and doubt to become a beloved adopted Scouser in a decade-long spell at Liverpool. <\/p>\n
Few, if any, players have enjoyed such a drastic transformation as the long-haired arrival from Gremio in 2007.<\/p>\n
Lucas came to the club with a glowing reputation as a young, attack-minded midfielder, but would blossom at the Reds in a more defensive role. <\/p>\n
Steven Gerrard<\/u><\/strong>, Xabi Alonso<\/u><\/strong>, Javier Mascherano<\/u><\/strong> and others were the midfield competition in his first few seasons, meaning Lucas had the challenge of maintaining such standards when handed game time.<\/p>\n It was Alonso\u2019s departure in 2009 that paved the way for the No.21 to stake a regular spot in the side \u2013 an opportunity he more than grasped.<\/p>\n Lucas racked up 50 appearances in 2009-10 \u2013 the most of his time at Anfield \u2013 and was then voted by supporters as Liverpool\u2019s Player of the Season in the following campaign.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lucas Leiva overcame criticism and doubt to become a beloved adopted Scouser in a decade-long<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6779,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeeworld.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}