Simon: I made a vow prior to Old Trafford

Brendan Rodgers had summoned the Belgian to his office at Melwood the day before the Reds were due to meet their fierce rivals at Old Trafford to inform him that he would not be starting in the forthcoming Barclays Premier League encounter.

A run of 93 consecutive starts in the league was about to be brought to an end and Mignolet was facing up to the prospect of watching from the sidelines as Brad Jones donned the gloves instead.

"The moment the gaffer took me into his office to tell me I wasn't playing, I told myself I could do two things; let my head drop or be positive and make sure the period on the sidelines was as short as it could be," said Mignolet. "And that is what we did."

Jones remained between the sticks for the Reds' following two games, against AFC Bournemouth and Arsenal, before the Australian was forced to withdraw due to injury during the first half of the Boxing Day tie with Burnley.

Mignolet had been preparing diligently for the moment.

"The day after [the chat with the manager], I started training, making sure I was ready for when the opportunity came across in a better way," said the 27-year-old.

"At that time, it gave me a chance to reflect on my game, something you don't really have the chance to when you are playing two games a week.

"You are going in from the game, then after the game you are thinking about recovery, you are analysing the last performance and preparing for the next performance.

"You don't really have the chance to think about things to improve, and that gave me the chance - it was only two weeks because of the injury to Brad - it gave me the time to sit down with the coaches and the gaffer, reflect on a couple of occasions, took me out of it a bit to come back stronger.

"The Burnley game came along, I kept a clean sheet and since then I can't be disappointed with how I have been performing."

Mignolet has grown in stature since the Boxing Day triumph, producing important stops to aide the side and blossoming into one of the team's most consistent performers.

Since the turn of the year, no less than nine clean sheets have been claimed by the stopper and the solid defence in front of him - and the Reds' No.22 insists his confidence is sky high.  

"I have been very pleased about how things are going, not only personally but also with the team," said Mignolet.

"I am one of the guys whose individual performance always come in second place. I want to win games and I want to be high up the table. Individual performances always come after that.

"I analyse my performance with the goalkeeping coach every week in a very critical way and I will keep doing that to keep improving. That's the only thing I can do really.

"When it's kick-off time it's about making sure we do the job as a team, to make sure we win and obviously the last games away from home, and when we have been keeping clean sheets at home, I have been very pleased about.

"But it's not something a goalkeeper does on his own. We do that with the whole team, not only the defence because we are a team that presses high up the field.

"There's no point in taking out any individual because if you look at the past couple of games we have played, you can pick any player from the starting XI and you won't be able to pick anyone you can say he can be disappointed or he won't be satisfied at how's he playing or performed."