Milner’s command performance keeps Liverpool in fight for title

Well, it was always going that way wasn’t it? At St Mary’s, Jürgen Klopp picked a fever dream of a Liverpool first XI for the penultimate game of the Premier League season, then saw his team fall behind after 13 minutes needing to win to take this pursuit of the sun, the chase for the quadruple, to the final day. And still, somehow, it never really seemed in doubt.

This Liverpool team has too much energy to stop now. And while it seems only right to point out the pursuit of the league title is still heavily asterisked, that it isn’t in Liverpool’s hands, Manchester City will be all too aware of the pressure at their backs.

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There has been a weird kind of voodoo about the current run. City have barely stuttered. They’ve also kept on winning, burying the pain of Madrid, playing like champions. Players have begun to break and fall away. The games have become frantic. But that gleaming set of teeth is still there in the rear-view mirror.

Here it was Liverpool’s deep reserves that kept them moving forward, driven on by a command performance from James Milner, who played half a game in the middle and half a game on the right, touched the ball more than anyone else on the pitch, and spent the 90 minutes cajoling his teammates over the line like a long-suffering dad on a cross-country hike.

St Mary’s is one of the more hospitable away grounds at the best of times. Before kickoff a marching band tootled away through the rain outside the stadium. No flares were thrown. No baying crowd greeted the team buses. Inside the atmosphere brought to mind a fond early summer village fete.

Whereas for Liverpool this was jeopardy, destiny, the edge