Steven Gerrard tells Liverpool youngsters to seize chance to impress

Steven Gerrard has urged Liverpool’s youngsters to seize their chance to impress new Reds manager Brendan Rodgers.

The 32-year-old broke into the Reds’ first-team in 1998, with Michael Owen already an established senior player following an explosive impact in the Premier League, while defender Jamie Carragher also made 20 appearances in the 1997-98 campaign.

Rodgers has been impressed by the performances of Raheem Sterling and Jonjo Shelvey during the club’s tour of America, while teenager Adam Morgan scored Liverpool’s winner in a 1-0 victory over FC Toronto.

“I see or hear some young lads talking about being patient or waiting for their chance,” Gerrard told Liverpool’s website.

“It sounds like they feel they need a 15-minute cameo in a first-team game to prove what they can do. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about proving yourself every day in training.

“We train from 10am until 1pm or 2pm. In that time you have to show you don’t want to wait around. Their attitude should be: it doesn’t matter how old I am, I’m good enough.

“They don’t want to be getting to September or October and wondering why they didn’t get a chance in a game. Do it now is my message to them.

“They have to go in every day and prove to the manager that they are better than those players who are in the team.

“Myself and Jamie and Michael didn’t wait around on the fringes of the squad hoping we’d be selected some day. We showed on the training pitch that we would do whatever it took to make the boss put us in.

“We showed the mental strength required. We proved that we were as good as, if not better than, those who had been ahead of us. That’s what these lads need to do.”

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Read more on: Brendan Rodgers, jonjo shelvey, Liverpool, Premier League, raheem sterling, Steven Gerrard.