James Milner was never afraid to speak up for himself and ask for more game time for Liverpool, something that he discussed in his latest interview.
Appearing on the High Performance podcast, the 37-year-old spoke about asking Jurgen Klopp for more minutes: “I think at that time, it was, I can’t remember the exact conversations, but I’d always just go in and say, ‘well, why am I not playing?’
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“It was never anything personal with anyone else, I would never ever say, ‘why is he playing ahead of me?’, or, ‘I’ve done this’.
“That’s their situation, that’s not for me to comment on another player, he’s got his own opinion those players, I’m going to ask why I’m not in the team and even if I believe I’m a better player than someone else, or I give more, I don’t think one that’s fair to my teammate.
“I’m the reason I’m going in so, it’s like, ‘why am I not in the team? What can I do better?’ and basically that’s it. If there’s something else, a situation that’s gone on, or something, you’ll talk about that and hopefully get an answer from the manager.”
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This strive for improving his own chances of minutes on the pitch, without hampering the chances of others or complaining about them, shows the driven nature of the Brighton midfielder.
It’s great that our manager can have a relationship with the players that allows them to be open enough to have these conversations and there’s clearly plenty of respect in place between both parties.
You can watch Milner’s comments on Klopp (from 41:40) via High Performance on YouTube:
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