Liverpool legends pay James Milner ultimate compliment at end of season meeting

Saturday’s draw with Aston Villa in the Premier League was a difficult one to take and all but ended our hopes of qualifying for the Champions League next season.

Look, we weren’t at it, were we? To their credit, I must say, Aston Villa did really well in the first half and have been one of the Premier League’s in-form sides since Unai Emery took over from Steven Gerrard earlier in the season.

I wasn’t impressed with Aston Villa’s time-wasting antics over the course of the game and quite frankly I’ve never seen anything like it in the Premier League before. I thought the referee, John Brooks, struggled to control the game and that showed as Villa were able to eat up plenty of the clock with players like Ashley Young and the goalkeeper, Emi Martinez, delaying restarts when the ball went out of play.

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I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and it was very similar to what Newcastle did at Anfield earlier in the season. Luckily, on that occasion, we had the last laugh when Fabio Carvalho scored a 97th-minute winner. They got what they deserved.

I hate to watch football like that and I can’t imagine anyone else enjoys it either. On Saturday, I was close to Jurgen Klopp in the directors’ lounge and he couldn’t believe what he was watching. That’s not football. Look, I understand you have to do your best to try and win football games and sometimes those dark arts can come into the contest late on, but those tactics and the way the Villa players went down don’t belong in football.

I’m not sure why Cody Gakpo’s ‘equaliser’ was ruled out and, to be honest, three days later I still can’t get my head around it. Ezri Konsa made a deliberate play for the ball and he does so whether Virgil van Dijk is standing there or not. His legs move to the ball as clear as day, it’s a deliberate action.

I think if we had equalised with a half-hour to go we probably would have gone on to win the game as Villa showed late on that they couldn’t cope with the onslaught of pressure we applied once our tails were wagging. I thought the big decisions – Tyrone Mings’ red card, Jordan Henderson’s penalty claim, and the goal – all went against us.

On the day, Liverpool could have played better, especially in the final third. Our runs and passes were very flat. The ball has to be moved around with pace and purpose and then you can bend your runs in behind. The movement wasn’t great. I mean how many times did the ball end up in the hands of the goalkeeper, which allowed him to waste more and more time. That’s the first time I’ve ever heard the Kop count seconds!

In truth, though, the midfield didn’t play like they did at Leicester earlier in the week, or any of the last six games, and it’s just a pity that all three of Fabinho, Henderson and Curtis Jones had off days. Trent Alexander-Arnold, too, wasn’t at his best. They have performed excellently over the last two months and sometimes you can afford to carry one player, but not all three of them. On Saturday, for some reason, there were too many players that fell short of 7s and 8s out of 10.

Though I thought they battled well and showed good spirit to get back into the game and that, for me, was pleasing as that hasn’t always been the case when the going has got tough at points during the season. The effort was definitely there.

We can all talk about the referee and the three decisions that I thought he could have done better with, and we should have done better ourselves over the course of the 90 minutes, but we definitely deserved a draw at least and it was so fitting that it was Roberto Firmino who scored it. It was the highlight of the game.

I was so happy for Firmino because he’s been an absolute superstar for us over the last eight years. How many players can say they came to England and won every single trophy available and played a crucial role in doing so? What an incredible player he has been for us.

I thought it was a pity James Milner’s departure was somewhat understated slightly because he’s been absolutely tremendous. As an ex-player, you can’t understate his importance in the dressing room, to the rest of the squad. He’s a manager’s dream.

Myself and some of the other Liverpool legends – John Barnes, Alan Kennedy, Ian Callaghan included – had our end-of-season get-together on Sunday afternoon, and you look around and you think Milner would have fitted into our era seamlessly. We were talking about Milner in particular and every one of us was just in awe of what he’s achieved at the club. He’s the last of a dying breed of old-fashioned footballers.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, too. He’s more than played his role in the success under Jurgen Klopp and it was just unfortunate that his team was disrupted through injuries because he always looked so promising when he was fit and firing. And Naby Keita too, obviously he wasn’t as instrumental as the three other departees and I think it’s best for all concerned if he looks to reignite his career elsewhere.

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