James Milner played in 31 Premier League matches for Manchester City of the past season, just by judging from this statistic and amount of games played for his club, anyone would consider the English midfielder to be an important and regular player for the Premier League club but after taking a closer inspection things aren’t as great as it seems like for Milner at the Etihad Stadium as he spends a large period of time on the bench.
Out of the 31 league matches that he played for City in the previous season, 19 of them arrived from the bench and a big chunk of those matches only saw Milner playing for nothing more than 30 minutes in each game.
Milner is 29 years old and he is well aware that at this stage of his career, it’s time to start analyzing what to do in the final seasons and years that are left in him. This is one of the biggest reasons of why he decided to join Liverpool as he left behind his career with Manchester United which expanded to almost 5 years.
A lot of people are baffled by Milner’s decision of leaving Manchester City and joining Liverpool. Manchester City indeed does have a better chance of snatching bigger titles such as: The Premier League and the Champions League. City are one of the favorites of becoming the new champions of England and taking the crown away from Chelsea but Liverpool on the other hand would be happy if they are able to secure a spot in the Champions League which is something that they failed to do in this past season.
The 29 years old English midfielder is not satisfied with staying on the bench for the majority of an entire season, he wants to get more playing time even though if it means that his chances of lifting a major piece of silverware is severely limited and this is why he opted to join Liverpool on a free transfer where his chances of getting more playing time are significantly higher.