Liverpool full-back Jon Flanagan has admitted that he thought his career at the club was over and considered leaving for regular first-team football.

Flanagan has impressed this season at left-back having come in for the injured Jose Enrique, but the 20-year-old said that having made his debut two years ago he thought his chance had gone.

"With all the players that were in front of me I thought that I was never going to get a chance," Sky Sports News quotes Flanagan as saying. "That's hard for me to admit because I'm a Liverpool fan and I'm desperate to be a Liverpool player but I also had to be realistic and at that time that was the way I saw it.

"It was tough. I'd had a couple of injuries and I was working hard but an opportunity wasn't really opening up for me.

"I had a couple of chances to go out on loan but I didn't think they were right for me and my development so I just stuck at it and waited for my chance."

The Reds are currently top of the Premier League.