Jurgen Klopp has handed Mohamed Salah the ‘James Milner award’ for winning Liverpool’s pre-season fitness tests.
Milner was been notorious for his commitment to pre-season during his eight years at the club. The veteran would regularly beat out teammates 10 or 15 years his junior.
But with Milner now preparing for the season with Brighton, there was an opening for someone at Liverpool to assume his crown.
In the end, Salah winning out will shock nobody. As seen on LFCTV’s latest Inside Training episode, the Egyptian barely breaks sweat as he completes some rigorous running exercises, much to Klopp’s delight.
“And the James Milner award goes to…” booms the Reds boss, as Mo jogs it in.
Never in doubt. Milly would be proud.
Mo takes Milner’s crown
It truly is amazing just how fit Milner remained during his time at Anfield. To beat the likes of Salah year after year is quite remarkable.
Liverpool’s No.11 is in brilliant shape. Despite now being 31, Salah remains at absolute peak physical fitness.
In Milner, the £34m man had the perfect role model. You can easily see Mo continuing in this vein until he reaches his mid to late 30’s. Hopefully that’s at Liverpool.
But this little snippet from training did also reveal something else other than Salah’s exemplarity fitness.
It showed that Jurgen won’t forget his former vice-captain in a hurry.
It’s been well documented that Klopp didn’t want to lose Milner this summer. The manager has stressed the importance of the 37-year-old countless times during his reign. If it were solely up to him, you’d imagine Milner would still be at the club.
Just a small token it may have been, but you can feel that Klopp is missing Milly already. In truth, so are we. In the likes of Salah though, his pre-season legacy lives on!
