Earlier today, we covered Suso’s interview with Sky Italia where he explained he was ‘one step away’ from joining Real Madrid before he made a switch to Liverpool from Spanish side Cadiz in 2010.
As a part of the interview, the AC Milan winger also talked about various topics including how he struggled to adapt in the Reds’ first team after their former manager Brendan Rodgers handed him his Liverpool debut in September 2012.
“In that year [2012] I always played as an external player on the right. It was all very fast. I had prepared with the first team, with Brendan Rodgers as coach,” he said, as quoted by Milan News.
“Then, after coming back from Boston [pre-season tour], I was sent to train with the reserves and then I was called again to train with the first team.
“After training for a few days, the day before a game the coach said to me: ‘Are you ready?’ to which I replied: ‘Ready for what?’ He told me: ‘Tomorrow you play with Sterling’, who also came from the academy like me.
“When I played the first game after 20 minutes, I was dead, because I had trained only a week with their intensity, rhythm and everything was different. I remember that I played 60 minutes and Suarez scored a hat-trick [against Norwich City].”
The Spaniard struggled to cement his place in the Merseyside club’s first team and was loaned out to Almería for the 2013/14 season. When he returned to Anfield, he had a year left on his contract with the Premier League side.
During his time at Almería, he was informed that Liverpool would offer him an extension on completing his loan spell, but it never materialsed.
“When there were 6 months left to return to Liverpool, he [agent] called me to calm me down and tell me that when I returned to England, they would offer me a new contract,” Suso explained.
“When I returned to Liverpool to start training, I felt that something had changed and I realised that they wouldn’t renew my contract.”
In January 2015, Suso underwent a medical with Milan to join them on a free transfer later that summer. However, the Serie A side ended up completing his transfer the same month from Liverpool.
“There were six months left of my contract, so I called my agent. He told me that Milan was an option after the end of the season,” the player stressed.
“I replied that I would like that a lot, because I thought it was another big club with a lot of history. I didn’t like the idea of waiting until June. I came to Milan to have my medical examinations and then I met [Adriano] Galliani [former Milan CEO].”
“I told him ‘I don’t want to go back to Liverpool and I would like to stay here’. At that point, he told me ‘okay, don’t worry’. The next day, my agent called me and said that Galliani had done everything, and if I wanted, I could join Milan straight away.”
