Two-goal James Milner paid tribute to former Liverpool defender Stephen Darby after their friendly win at Bradford City.

Darby was forced to retire from football at the age of 29 last September having been diagnosed with motor neurone disease.

Sunday's pre-season match at Valley Parade raised funds for the Darby Rimmer MND Foundation, the foundation launched by Darby to increase awareness and help others.

Milner found the target twice in a 3-1 win for Jürgen Klopp's side, one via a deflection and the other from the penalty spot, with Rhian Brewster also on the scoresheet.

He told liverpoolfc.com: "Personally, I'm proud to know Stephen… how he deals with everything. It has been a great occasion today with everyone coming out. It is a horrible disease but [he has] everyone around him. Anything that's been raised today, and the awareness, hopefully helps other people going through the same thing."

The James Milner Foundation was able to donate to the Darby Rimmer MND Foundation on the day.

Milner added: "Obviously I'm in a fortunate position to help, we help some great causes and Darbs's foundation is one of many. How he's conducted himself, how he is going about what he's done, setting up the foundation, him and Steph [Houghton] together – we obviously want to help as much as we can. We're having another ball this year on December 1 and hopefully we can raise more funds again and some of those will be going to that again."