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Brad Jones has revealed his determination to force a way back into the first-team picture at Liverpool and has told Brendan Rodgers: “I’m always ready.”

The Australian has made just 22 appearances for the Reds since signing from Middlesbrough in 2010 and has not featured at all so far this term.

But the 32-year-old insists he is not content with warming the bench every week and wants to be the Reds number one goalkeeper.

Jones is currently understudy to Simon Mignolet but has reminded Rodgers that he will jump into action if called upon.

“Before every game, I will be honest, I’m disappointed if I’m not playing,” said Jones.

“It might sound stupid but that’s how I work during the week.

“If I just decided that I wasn’t going to play and I was going to be content with that then the work I do on the training pitch would suffer.

“I want to play every game that comes along and I would like to be out there but the situation is what it is and I have got to be ready when called upon.

“I have always done that. There was a couple of season ago when I got a fair few games and the manager said that was from the work I put in during training.

"For me, that was good to know that training does matter.

“One thing people find when they come to the club is how hard training is. How intense it is.

"Players don’t do down days and that comes from Stevie (Gerrard).

"I don’t think I have ever seen him walk around in training.

"He is one of the hardest workers so when your captain is like that everyone follows. And it is something that has probably improved a lot of people’s game.”

Although Jones would relish a run as Liverpool’s first-choice stopper he has leapt to the defence of the under-fire Mignolet.

The £9m signing from Sunderland has been hit by plenty of criticism so far this season after a number of unconvincing displays.

And the scrutiny on the Belgian was cranked up a notch by Gary Neville’s analysis of his performances on Sky Sports recently.

Liverpool have shown an interest in signing former Barcelona keeper Victor Valdes but Jones has encouraged his team-mate to ignore the speculation.

“I’ve seen enough over the years that people want to jump on the bandwagon and criticise people and as a goalkeeper you tend to get that,” said Jones.

“There are not too many people who speak highly of goalkeepers. They tend to want to put them down.

“He is strong minded enough to get on with his job and understand what happens. It is a shame that it happens because last season he produced some massive saves that helped us win games and people tend to forget them.

“Then the press jump on it and want to criticise him and say someone else is coming into the club and this and that.

"It is important to let him get on with his job and to continue doing the things he was doing last season.”

On Sky’s criticism of Mignolet, Jones added: “I’ve never seen Gary Neville play in goal but he seemed to have a good opinion of it.

“Everyone has an opinion. What we work on in training is very match specific and match related. It’s just one of those things and there are too many opinions knocking about nowadays.”

Jones was speaking at Liverpool FC Foundation’s ‘Respect 4 All’ session at St Margaret’s CE School in Aigburth.

The programme delivers specific multi-sport classes to more than 150 children and adults at two centres on Merseyside.

Jones was on hand to help coaches put on a session for visually impaired youngsters from the Royal School for the Blind on Wednesday night.

Classes in the Foundation’s ‘Respect 4 All’ programme run from Tuesday to Saturday each week and help a variety of people throughout the region.

Mark Haig, head of operations for the Foundation, said: “Respect 4 All is a fantastic programme which is well attended and supported by the local community.

“The sessions help to promote and encourage young people and adults to engage in sports and demonstrate that regardless of ability everyone can get involved in physical activity.”