Liverpool summer signing considers shock exit after just six months at Anfield

Milner has refused to rule out a return to his first club, Leeds

 

JAMES MILNER may yet return to Leeds United, the club where he started his professional career.

 

The Liverpool vice-captain is on his fourth permanent club since leaving Elland Road in 2004, having joined the team at the age of just ten.

And now, with his 30th birthday a little over two weeks away, Milner is faced with the query of whether he might go back the club where he became at the time the youngest player to score in the Premier League.

“That’s a question I get asked so often, all around the globe as well, and that shows what a big club Leeds is and the number of fans they have,” Milner told the Yorkshire Post.

 

“Leeds United fans are everywhere.

“I could be in America or I could be in the Far East on tour with the team, or in Europe or in Liverpool or Manchester and you get Leeds fans coming up to you saying ‘I’m a Leeds fan, when are you going to come back.’

“I’ve been to some pretty different places and asked that question and I always have the same answer – you never say never and it’s so hard to say in football what’s going to happen.

“Things change week to week and that’s the nature of football.

“I want to play at the highest level possible for as a long as I can and hopefully Leeds get back in the Premier League.

 

“That’s obviously where they belong.”

Milner has racked up 356 Premier League appearances since leaving Yorkshire for Newcastle.

The 29-year-old spent five seasons at St James' Park, although one of them he played mostly at Aston Villa on loan, a club he would later permanently join.

And in 2010 oil-rich Manchester City came calling with a reported £26million move that involved Stephen Ireland going the other way.

Now at Liverpool, Milner has 57 England caps to his name and counting, and will surely be a crucial part of Roy Hodgson's squad next summer in France, where they will face Russia, Slovakia, and rivals Wales in the group stages.

 

And the midfielder, a veteran of three previous major tournaments, knows how tough it will be.

"There’s a lot of good sides there and I think the squad has changed a lot over the last few years," Milner added.

“It’s changed an amazing amount since I have been in the squad from the guys who I came in with – David Beckham and Rio (Ferdinand) and those sorts of guys.

“The squad has changed massively and I think it is exciting times again with England.

“It’s a good mix we have got of experience and youth.

“I think as a group it is tough but that’s what happens at major tournaments and teams are there because they have qualified and they deserve to be there.

“It’s going to be tough."