It was a friendship they kept private. Everton and Liverpool players were not supposed to fraternise. But one of the reasons Mikel Arteta decided to join Everton on loan in January 2005 was that one of his childhood friends was playing on the other side of Stanley Park.
Xabi Alonso had joined Liverpool six months earlier, and the pair would spend the next five years together on Merseyside, spending time at each other’s houses, enjoying each other’s company away from the Premier League spotlight.
