Liverpool midfielder James Milner has admitted that if the club cannot win their home games in the Champions League, then they don’t deserve to progress to the knockout stage of the competition.
Liverpool fell to a 2-1 defeat to Paris Saint-Germain at Anfield on Wednesday night, and although the Reds are not yet unable to progress to the next round of the Champions League, it does take qualification down to the wire.
The Reds must beat Napoli by two goals in their final group game if they are to progress, and James Milner has expressed his frustrations at having let the competition get to this stage. As reported by the Telegraph, Milner said:
If you can’t win your home games in the Champions League then you don’t deserve to go through.
If you had said, ‘you have to win your last home game to get through the group’ I think everyone would have been fine with it.
To have it in your own hands going into the last game and having a home game – we’d like to have it sewn up by now sure we would – but I don’t think you can ask for more.
It isn’t going to be easy. They (Napoli) are a very good team. To have the last game at home, if you don’t get the win you don’t deserve to go through.
We had a good run last year and that will definitely help us but we got through in the final group game last year and look where we ended up. You don’t see any of the lads panicking. We are comfortable we can go and finish the job at home. I’m not concerned. We’ve played pretty well this season.
Our aim is to get out of the group – get the result and get through. If we don’t do that we don’t deserve to be in the Champions League and we’ll take whatever happens from there – Europa League or whatever.
Now we need to look forward and the only option for us to qualify is to win against Napoli, no matter what.
We know that there’s only one chance left and we all want to take it.
