Milner: Liverpool deserve a trophy

James Milner feels Liverpool’s record-breaking Premier League season means they deserve to end the campaign with silverware.

Although Jurgen Klopp’s side piled up 97 Premier League points, more than any runner-up in the division’s history, they were pipped to the post by Manchester City.

Pep Guardiola’s men won their last 14 league games of the season to become the first team to retain the Premier League title since Manchester United a decade ago.

Liverpool can still end a season of great progress on a huge high as they face Tottenham in an all-English Champions League final in Madrid on June 1.

And Milner, who won two Premier League titles at City before moving to Anfield in 2015, believes it would be a fitting end to the campaign were the Reds to claim a sixth European crown.

“When you think of 30 wins out of 38, at the start of the season you’d like to think that’s good enough,” Milner told Liverpool’s club website. “But obviously that shows how good Man City are as well. It’s disappointing. We have to be proud of what we’ve achieved.

“Unfortunately it’s just short, but obviously what we did earlier in the week gives us a chance to go and redeem ourselves and get a piece of silverware because I think everyone deserves a bit of silverware. I think the team especially, these boys, how they grind out results. 

“What we’ve been through in the last two weeks from Barcelona away [in the Champions League semi-finals], putting on a pretty good performance and losing like we did, to go to Newcastle with a quick turnaround and grind out a result and then obviously do what we did in midweek [the Barca comeback] and then bounce back again today [Sunday], knowing it was out of our hands [but] to get that result – I haven’t got enough good words to say about the character within the squad, the ability and the mentality. 

“The fans have been unbelievable all year, they’ve lifted us when we’ve needed them, they’ve stuck with us when it’s been tough in games and like I say, the boys deserve a bit of silverware, but the fans do too.”

Thanks for the incredible support this season.
We go again in 3 weeks. #inittogether #YNWA pic.twitter.com/ocK6q6H9RF

— James Milner (@JamesMilner) May 12, 2019

Klopp has only won one of the seven finals he has contested as a manager, with the Reds hoping to go one step better after last year’s Champions League loss to Real Madrid.

“We have to do a couple of things in preparation for the Champions League [final], media stuff,” Klopp told Liverpool’s website.

“We have to do that, then the boys will have a couple of days off and then we have two proper weeks as a pre-season for the Champions League final.

“We will do that, we will play that, [hopefully] win it, come home and then the people [would] get what they deserve.”