Simon Mignolet is determined to emb

Simon Mignolet is determined to embrace the responsibility that comes with committing the next stage of his career to Liverpool after the goalkeeper signed a new deal with the club today.

The 27-year-old sealed an extension to his Reds contract at Melwood this afternoon and immediately sat down with Liverpoolfc.com to explain his ambitions and objectives for the future.

Now midway through his third season on Merseyside, Mignolet has clocked up 122 appearances and ended 2015 with more clean sheets than any other ‘keeper in the Barclays Premier League.

But the Belgium international is eager to improve his performance level further and play a crucial role for Jürgen Klopp’s team in the months and years ahead.

Read on for a full transcript or click play above to watch the interview if you are an LFCTV GO subscriber.

Congratulations on the new long-term contract – how pleased are you to get this deal done and dusted?

It’s amazing and I have to thank the club for the confidence in me. I’m very pleased that I can be at Anfield and a part of Liverpool for a long future. I’m happy to commit my future to LFC.

Why is this the right place for you?

Ever since I arrived here we have been going in the right direction. Also, with the new manager, who has praised me a lot – not only speaking with me personally but also to the outside world – I feel a lot of confidence from him. I’m here for the long-term future now and let’s hope together with the squad and the fans, we can achieve great things. We have to push on and keep improving. At the moment I arrived, three years ago now, I spoke with the goalkeeping coach and everybody at the club about what we could do better and work on. That list is becoming smaller and smaller. But it doesn’t mean that now I’ve signed the contract anything is going to change. We’re going to keep working hard and keep improving and building in the direction we want to go.

Was it important for you that now the contract is done, you can focus on continuing that improvement?

Yes, exactly. That’s the main thing. I have learned a lot since I arrived here, playing for a big club like Liverpool. Like I said, at the moment I arrived, we spoke about things we wanted to do better and could do better – that list is getting smaller. We’re working in the same direction to keep going forward. This contract is some sort of incentive to keep doing that. I wouldn’t say I want to work harder or push harder because that would mean in the past three years I wasn’t working at 100 per cent. Nothing has changed really. I signed my contract today. This morning, I was in the gym again to do my work and that will be the same for the future.

How have you changed since you first came to the club and how has the club changed?

Obviously the new manager has come in and a lot of players have come in and out. I have learned a lot of things. When you come to a big club, it was an eye-opener to see how big the club is all over the world. Then also in playing games, as a goalkeeper you have to change your style a bit and change the way you play. Playing out from the back, being commanding and being a leader is something very different to what I was used to before. Those are the things I will keep improving on. I’ll keep trying to do my best; I know where I can improve and I know where I can become better. Now we’ll work hard every single day in training and in the games we play to do that. I know signing a new contract comes with new responsibility. I’m getting older as well and coming into the years where people would say those are the years a ‘keeper is at his best. I know with a long-term contract, you get more responsibility – and I want to take up that role because I’m the sort of character that wants to be a leader, wants to speak in the dressing room and wants to help the defence. It’s an incentive to work hard in that sense, to be more commanding and to be a leader to help the team out whenever needed. I’ll try to work hard togethe