re: tOfficial Liverpool 2017/2018 Thread: “Upgrades Incoming Edition: A Great Season!”

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Suddenly they were there. The Albert pub is a Liverpool football club landmark. It sits on the boundary of Anfield, in front of the Kop. It's a place to gather before games, to sing songs, meet friends and try to fight your way to the bar. Last night, at about ten minutes past seven, 35 minutes before the Champions League semi-final between Liverpool and AS Roma kicked off, I was among a small group of fans milling around in front of the Albert.

We were outside the Albert and then, out of nowhere, so were 50 or so Roma fans. Ultras – the hardcore – in balaclavas and face scarves, swinging belts and bats and ropes, singing a song about Liverpool, hissing it at us as they appeared in front of us. Ratty guys in in pre-distressed jeans and big white trainers. One of them was carrying a hammer. One of them had what looked like a hangman's noose in his hand.

It was a routine face-off, and then it wasn't. There was a flurry, a blur of activity, a belt was swung and then there he was, a middle-aged man laid out on the floor, a few yards from me, unconscious. A minute or so before I'd noticed him, noted that he was about the nearest one of us to the ultras. From where I was standing, he could not have looked more harmless. A middle-aged man minding his own business in front of the pub. A fan standing outside the ground before the game, taking it all in. And then he was on the ground.

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After the game – the incredible game, a game that had us on the Kop looking at each other in amazement – I walked back to where I was staying, next to Toxteth cemetery. A-roads and Victorian buildings, seagulls and the moon coming out from behind the clouds, fans singing Allez allez allez. I got back to my room and found out about Sean Cox, found out he was in a critical condition.

This morning, BBC Radio Four reported on fights "between" Roma and Liverpool fans. That's not what it looked like to me. What it looked like was an ambush on fans who didn't want to fight by fans who did want to fight. AS Roma have condemned the actions of a "minority" of their fans, though this is by no means the first time this has happened.

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Perhaps the most intriguing part of the current Milner Supremacy is that there are no obvious changes to his game. This is not an act of alchemy, the dramatic discovery of some hidden superpower by Professor Klopp, wheeling himself in through the conservatory doors, cranium throbbing. At Anfield Milner was simply himself once again, a footballer without a turn of pace, with no eye-catching technical skills, or obvious extreme qualities beyond the vital ones of intelligence, stamina and versatility.

As Liverpool wrestled with Roma’s power and craft in the opening 20 minutes Milner was diligent and compact. As Liverpool surged into that annihilating Red Zone midway through the half Milner was diligent and compact. As Roma scored two late goals Milner was still diligent and compact, not to mention a little unlucky to concede a late penalty.

He remains Milner the mule, an endearingly dogged, biddable figure, approaching each box-to-box shift like a plucky Soviet tractor steadily ploughing its way to the horizon and back again. Alongside the more deep-lying version of Henderson he provides a vital element of stillness at the heart of this attacking whirl of a team. Milner knows where to stand, where to cover, is free of the kind of creative ego that might lead him galloping into the wrong part of the pitch.

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