Brighton's James Milner reveals heated clash with Jurgen Klopp - and now the Liverpool boss has responded

The 37-year-old swapped the Reds for Albion in the summer, ending an eight-year stint that yielded a Champions League title, the Premier League, the FA Cup, the Carabao Cup, and the FIFA Club World Cup. The former England international said he had a great relationship with Klopp but there was one moment where things turned rather nasty.

Back in 2017, then vice-captain Milner attempted to give feedback to the ex-Borussia Dortmund boss at half time but it did not go down well. “He [Klopp] was pretty good most of the time, he was open,” Milner recalled on the High Performance podcast. “Maybe not at half time, we had one occasion where he was sharing his thoughts and I was sharing mine and I remember him smashing his hands down on the table like ‘will you shut the f*** up?!’

“But Jurgen was brilliant. I had a great relationship with him, off the field as well, he supported our charity (the James Milner Foundation) as well so much.”

To corroborate this story, former Liverpool defender Ragnar Klavan previously said the pair were close to having a fight (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-10024365/Jurgen-Klopp-James-Milner-started-fight-Liverpool-drew-Sunderland-2017.html) in the dressing room six years ago. Then, on Monday night, Klopp revealed he had heard the veteran's comments at a test event for the new Anfield Road stand. Rather than chastise the former Manchester City man, who made 332 appearances for Liverpool, he couldn't disguise his joy at hearing from his old player.

“James Milner had I think a podcast, had a bit of an insight [about] things that happened in the dressing room,” he said. “I was listening to it and actually one of my dreams came true – one of my former players talking about our common past. I couldn’t wipe my smile, that’s exactly what happened. So many great things happened here in the last few years and this team is set up for great things in the future”