James Milner, who will be heading into his 20th season at the highest level, opens up about the pre-season and return of their star defenders from injuries.
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Liverpool’s vice-captain James Milner is preparing for the 2021-22 campaign as part of a 34-man squad that has travelled to a base in the Salzburg region of Austria. Milner, who will be heading into his 20th season at the highest level, opens up about the pre-season. “Not too bad to be fair, I feel pretty good,” Milner told Liverpoolfc.com. “It’s good to be back with the guys. Obviously the amount of time we spend together, the relationships you build and the things you go through, [the] ups and downs as a unit; when you’re not together you’re enjoying your holidays but when you get back together you realise how much you miss people and it’s good to be back together.
“The sessions have been great, [there’s been] a bit of everything in there. A lot of hard work obviously as well, but just working on things we maybe want to improve on going into next season and a high emphasis on those things.” When asked whether he is properly in the rhythm of pre-season, Milner replied, “Yeah, I think obviously like I said you work in the off-season yourself, but there’s nothing that prepares you for the session-on-session, day-on-day [routine]. It is a long camp, I’m not looking too far ahead and counting off the days if you like, I’m counting off the sessions.”
“We have a lot of doubles [sessions] and things like that, so get through the morning session, refuel and go again. It’s pretty short-term thinking but each session is very important and the coaches are obviously great working on everything they need to: mixing it up [and] keeping it interesting, but with a high emphasis on the things that we want to improve and take into this year. So that’s obviously important that we’re getting that message and doing the work now so it becomes second-nature to us and it’s not something that needs to be asked for or something that we’re consciously thinking about once it comes to game day, you automatically just do it.”
Liverpool had major injury issues last season, with defenders Joe Gomez, Joel Matip and Virgil van Dijk, missing a lot of games. All three of them are now involved in the pre-season. When asked how much of a lift has it been to have them back in training, Milner replied, “Yeah, amazing. Like I say, it’s great to be back among the boys but great to have the guys who we missed so much last year back as well. They’re obviously big parts of the squad on the field but also off the field as well: big characters, great people to have in the squad and just as people and knowing what great guys they are, it’s great to have them back playing and being happy.”
“Obviously every footballer just wants to play football, so we’re lucky, or unlucky enough shall we say, to watch them go through that from behind the scenes and see the hours that they’ve put in, and the hard work, and the weight sessions, and the long days. You know, everybody has up days and down days but you feel proud to see them come back on the field and just happy for them because you know how tough it’s been but how much hard work they’ve done. They look in great nick all of them and ready to go.”
