James Milner's verdict on Champions League exit
James Milner rued missed chances after Liverpool were eliminated from the Champions League by Real Madrid.
The Reds went into Wednesday night’s quarter-final second leg at Anfield needing to overturn a 3-1 deficit from last week’s match in the Spanish capital.
But, despite a much-improved display from Jürgen Klopp's side that featured 15 shots on goal, Real held out for a 0-0 draw that sees them through to the last four.
Milner told BT Sport: “I thought the performance was good. The intensity [and] desire were good, we won the ball back well, pressed pretty well.
“But you can’t not take the chances we had tonight. We had more than enough chances to do what we needed to do and we didn’t take them and that was the difference unfortunately.”
Read on for the rest of the captain’s post-match interview…
On Liverpool's profligacy in front of goal…
The positive is that we’re creating them [chances], especially against a team like this, and the reaction we showed after the first leg. We have done enough tonight to go through, I believe that with the chances we had. We were obviously the better team. Ali’s made a good save as well, which you’re going to expect, but we did enough to win the game and do what we needed to do. But if you don’t take your chances… and you only need that first one, if you get the first one then obviously it changes the game again but if you don’t take your chances then you’re not going to go through.
On their high-tempo start to the game…
We wanted to come out of the blocks and make sure they had no time on the ball, and set that tempo and intensity. I think that carried through then from early on and maybe with a few of the substitutions - sometimes you lose your way a bit for a few minutes until the guys get into the game, maybe that cost us a few minutes of time, but we came again and had chances once the boys come on and felt the tempo of the game. It’s disappointing, a disappointing way to end obviously, because if we’d have played the first leg with that same intensity I’m sure it could have been a different story.
On the Reds giving themselves ‘a mountain to climb’ with their performance in the first leg…
We did. From our poor performance [in the] first leg, but you could say we’ve left ourselves too much to do because we haven’t done it, but like I said, we have done enough tonight to probably win the game if we take our chances. But ultimately we weren’t good enough over the two games. It was a good effort tonight, I thought there were some outstanding performances. Nat Phillips again was absolutely fantastic at the back. Again, it’s disappointing because we did everything we wanted to do other than get the two goals, which is obviously the most important thing.
On refocusing on securing a top-four finish in the Premier League…
The most important thing is we concentrate on our level of performance and if we perform with that level of intensity and desire and tempo that we played with tonight for the last league games, hopefully we can get into those top-four spots. But that’s the most important thing: that we replicate this form and these sorts of performances. That’s the one thing that has been missing, that consistency we haven’t had, so that’s what we need to get back and have a big push in these last few games and put this disappointment aside.