James Milner has revealed why one of his Liverpool teammates was annoyed with him after the Reds’ victory over Chelsea in the 2022 FA Cup final.
It was the second time that season that Jurgen Klopp’s side defeated the Blues in a penalty shootout to win domestic silverware at Wembley, with the decisive spot kick converted by Kostas Tsimikas.
Now playing at Brighton, the 38-year-old harked back to that triumph from two years ago in a guest appearance on Football’s Greatest with Jeff Stelling, and he explained why the £75,000-per-week defender (Capology) ‘had the hump’ with him after the penalties.
Milner said: “I haven’t got a target [for retirement]. I think you just take every game and enjoy every game you come into… Is it my last Premier League game? Is it my last European game? You never know, so I’m just trying to enjoy and take it in.
“I felt that more towards the end with Liverpool when we won trophies, just taking things in that you wouldn’t think about before. I would watch the boys’ reaction when we won the title, standing at the back of the room and watching the Chelsea game and watching everyone in front of me and how they were reacting.
“That was special and you wouldn’t normally do that, but I was fortunate enough to have done it before so I just wanted to enjoy it. When we won the cup at Wembley I was watching the fans’ reaction when Kostas scored the penalty.
“Kostas had the hump with me because he thought I couldn’t watch his penalty because I had no faith in him! But I wanted to watch the fans’ reaction when it went in. It’s the little things like that and I’ve been lucky enough to be able to experience them.”
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Milner was 36 at the time of that FA Cup final against Chelsea and was coming into the final year of his contract at Liverpool, where he’d already won five trophies, so he could be forgiven for wanting to take in the fans’ reaction during the penalty shootout.
By contrast, it was only the second time Tsimikas had tasted silverware at Anfield, having come to the club a few weeks after the Premier League triumph in 2020, so he missed out on much of the success that the Reds have had under Klopp.
Maybe the Greek Scouser hadn’t realised his then-teammate’s motivations for not watching his decisive penalty at Wembley and taken it up the wrong way, but we’re sure that the two of them patched up any lingering dissatisfaction between them before long.
Perhaps there’s a lesson in there for the current Liverpool squad – if Kostas has the chance to win a penalty shootout again, have faith in him and try not to look away (or at least don’t let him catch you doing so!).