MJ Williams believes he has found a home at Bolton Wanderers which he is 'loving every minute' of and believes his grounding at Liverpool helped shape him into the player he is today.
Williams has established himself as a key player for Wanderers since joining the club last January, and has recently put pen to paper on a new deal which will keep him at the University of Bolton Stadium until the summer of 2023.
The 26-year-old Wanderers midfielder came through the youth team ranks at Anfield where he made just one appearance, before having loan spells at Notts County and Swindon Town.
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He later moved to Rochdale after a loan spell, before moving to Blackpool in the summer of 2020, before heading to the Whites earlier this year and earning a promotion winners' medal.
Williams speaks fondly of his time at the Premier League club and believes he has taken what he learned at Anfield to Wanderers where he has settled in and found a home.
He told LFC TV: “I’m loving every minute. It feels like this is my home now, I’m settled in a team that’s got a lot of quality and a manager that’s absolutely brilliant for me, so I’m loving every minute.
“I just know the game a bit more now and I’m probably more mature. I’d advise anyone to go out on loan because it’s a different world when you get out in first team games and League One this season for us, it’s a top league now.
"There’s some massive teams in there and if you can just get out there and get them games underneath your belt. I’ve matured a lot, I probably know the game a bit more.
“Looking back on my time at Liverpool it was amazing, I still to this day, the way I play, I take everything I’ve learnt from the top coaches that I’ve worked with and obviously they saved my career as well with my knee injury, so looking back at it, it was a great time there. I learned so much and I’ve took it with me.”
Williams joined Liverpool's academy at the under-14 level and came through the ranks as he was coached by the likes of Steve Cooper, Neil Critchley and Alex Inglethorpe.
When he began training with the first team, Kop legend Steven Gerrard was in the twlight of his Liverpool career and recalled the imapct that the former Liverpool and England skipper had on his game, with which he has taken tips from for his own playing style.
Williams said: “Growing up I was at Bangor to start with and then I moved to Wrexham. I joined Liverpool after that and it took me a bit of time to settle in. There was a lot of Scousers in the team and they’re loud and the lads were great at that time.
“Steve Cooper was under-16s and then Neil Critchley was under-18s and then Alex Inglethorpe was under-23s. You had to be ready for your chance to go up to the first team and he drilled that into us and it was just the way we used to train and stuff like that, you have to be at it all the time, because if you’re going to go up to the first team, you have to be right at it.
“I went up there a couple of times and I remember going up the first time, I was really nervous and doing stuff that I wouldn’t usually do but then I moved up there for about three or four months. Everyday I was there training and it was amazing.
“Gerrard was there at the time and as anybody would know, playing my position at the time, I just used to learn everything, the way to ping the ball, how he was around the place. Even the way he used to eat and watching what he was eating because his physique and everything was just perfect, so I wanted to learn off the best.
“He used to say you’re part of this team and when you’re up here, you’ve just got to be one like you’ve trained up here for plenty of years and you couldn’t shy away from it because you’d get found out."
