Liverpool midfielder James Milner has revealed that he had to order his teammates to put their phones down after winning the FA Cup final against Chelsea.
Jurgen Klopp masterminded the club’s first success in the competition in 16 years, with the Merseyside outfit running out victors on penalties. Kostas Tsimikas converted the winning spot kick after Mason Mount saw his effort saved by Alisson.
The Greek’s successful penalty triggered wild celebrations both on and off the pitch at Wembley Stadium and one man who was once again at the heart of it was Milner. With his latest success, the decorated 36-year-old has taken his career trophy haul to 11 having won the FA Cup with both Manchester City and Liverpool.
However, he had to tell fellow members of the Reds squad to put down the phones and just live in the moment. He said: “You never know when it’s going to be your last. You go into the dressing room after the game and all of the lads are straight on their phones. I’m saying: ‘You’ve won the FA Cup - get off your phone!’
“Yeah, you get 40 or 50 messages but you get on the bus and you can deal with that. You are lucky to be a footballer, lucky to play in any final and to win ten medals, if you’ve said that to me at the start of my career then I’d have been pretty happy!
“I said to Trent: ‘don’t get bored of it!’ What an incredible player he is but he’s got to be. He deserves everything but you never know when things are going to change and you have to enjoy it.”
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Milner could yet add two more trophies to his collection between now and the end of the season with Liverpool still able to complete an unprecedented quadruple. The Reds have, of course, already claimed the Carabao Cup and FA Cup, whilst they are set to take on Real Madrid in the Champions League final in less than a fortnight.
They also still have slim hopes of closing the gap to Manchester City at the top of the Premier League. However, they have to beat Southampton on Tuesday evening to stand any chance of claiming the title on the last day - and even then they are relying on City dropping points against Aston Villa.
Despite that, Reds boss Klopp has instructed his side to "enjoy" the challenge of making history by lifting all four trophies before the end of the campaign. Speaking ahead of the FA Cup final, the German said: “If we stop now it’s not great that we didn’t win the FA Cup final and didn’t win the Champions League final and came second in the Premier League.
"Forget that and just say: ‘Wow, that was a ride.’ We only cause ourselves problems as human beings. ‘Don’t come home without a quadruple,’ for example – then you will never be happy. If that is the only way to satisfy you that is really difficult. Let’s give it a go.”
