WALL TO PLAY FOR
MILNER’S OUT TO ADD TO FAMOUS MELWOOD MURAL
THE driving inspiration of Liverpool’s title triumph was the desire to give a whole new generation of fans a dominant era of glory.
That is the message from veteran midfielder James Milner, who insists winning the Premier League this season is not the end of that journey, but merely the start of a quest to repeat history by adding new numbers to the club’s Champions Wall.
For Milner, the pressure of adding trophies to that famous mural at the Melwood training ground was a motivation rather than a burden in part because of those supporters who are too young to remember previous eras of seamless success.
He said: “I’ve said a number of times how desperate I was to change the numbers on that board – and to be able to do it a few times in a year is great and special. It’s always special to win the title as it’s incredibly difficult to do.
“But how long this club has waited and how desperate they were for it, you see the history, all the times they’ve won it before and the Wall of Champions.
“The fans have waited so long and you think of the different generations: people who have been desperate to experience it again; fans who weren’t born the last time it happened and have heard about all this success but have never seen it themselves. When you think about those generations, it does make it special and you feel proud to be a part of it.”
The artist who updates that Champions Wall has been busy in the past 12 months, adding the Champions League, UEFA Super Cup and Club World Club. But it is the league title that the fans have been longing for. And speaking to the club’s official website as part of a Champions series Milner, above, explained that now the trophy has been delivered after a 30-year wait, there can be no let-up.
“It’s a short career and you don’t want to waste a season or two seasons thinking, ‘We were that good a team but we took our eye off the ball and didn’t deliver’,” he said.
“That would be criminal and something we definitely don’t want to look back at.We have a couple of weeks to enjoy being champions and then, as soon as next season starts, we have to do our job, get on that field and be even better.
“If we’re at the level we’re at now next season, it won’t be good enough.”
Milner says Liverpool have the right to bask in their current glory for these brief weeks.
“It’s such a tough league, it takes a special group of players and staff to win a league title,” he said. “Trent [Alexander-Arnold] thinks it’s absolutely easy! He just turns up and wins trophies every year. But I can assure you, it’s not.”