ReactionJames Milner: We can be proud of ourselves no matter what

The Reds ensured their title race with Manchester City will go down to the wire by coming from a goal behind to beat Southampton 2-1 on Tuesday night.

After Nathan Redmond’s early opener on the south coast, Takumi Minamino blasted in an equaliser and Joel Matip forced in a headed winner in the second half.

It means Jürgen Klopp’s side trail the leaders by one point with one game apiece to play; Liverpool host Wolverhampton Wanderers and City welcome Aston Villa on Sunday.

Post-match, Milner spoke to Sky Sports about the victory at Southampton – where Klopp made nine changes to his starting XI – and the situation in the battle for the championship…

On the mentality the players who came in showed on the night…

The guys are incredible, the guys who maybe haven’t played as much; but you should see them train every single day, it’s incredible the level they put in. You can see when they need to step up, they have. It’s a special group of players and a special football club. We fight to the end, keep going, all we can do is take it as far as we can.

On what the performance says about the squad…

It says a lot. It shows how ready everyone is, it shows how ready they are mentally, even when they’re probably not playing as many minutes as they would like. The intensity and desire in training every day to be able to come and play the way we play is special. That starts right from the top with the manager and the attitude of the players.

On having to dig deep after going behind to Saints…

Yeah, 100 per cent. I think Ali would probably save it, it flicked off me I think. It was a bit unlucky, backs against the wall then. It’s easy to make excuses [about] the emotion of the weekend, how much we put into the weekend and then having to come here so soon after; going one down. But there’s no excuses with these guys, they just keep pushing it and keep going. It was great to get in front and then try to see it out, keep the ball as much as we can and conserve that energy.

On switching from midfield to right-back for the second half…

It’s not my favourite switch in the world, to be honest! But what’s needed. Joey got a naughty one on his ankle and couldn’t continue. It was unfortunate, I was enjoying the middle and Joey has been fantastic when he has played this season as well, so hopefully he’s OK. What the team needed. It was a great team performance again from everyone who was involved.

On his thoughts on the final day of the league season…

Try to win our game. That’s all we can do, try to win our game. That’s all we’ve been trying to do since we sort of had a reset in January when we were so far behind them and we went for it again and had a mental reset. Since then, we’ve really pushed. They’re an incredible team to go up against and whatever happens this season, I think we’ve done ourselves proud. You’re coming up against a top team like Man City so all we can do is try to win our games and try to keep the pressure on them right until the end.

On there being hope…

That’s all we can do. All we can do is take it to the last game – we’ve done that. It wasn’t going to be easy after the weekend coming here, their last home game of the season, obviously they’re going to want to finish on a win. So it’s pleasing to come here, get this result, take it to the last game. Hopefully we can have two more big performances this season.