He may not be Maradona – God rest that legend’s soul – but the evergreen James Milner is something special to Liverpool fans. Leo Moynihan celebrates the much-decorated dynamo…

Under a searing Mexican sun in 1986, early in the second half of a World Cup quarter-final, the Argentine midfielder Hector Enrique plays an innocuous five-yard pass in his own half to Diego Mardadona who, after a pirouette sets off up the pitch, beats six players and scores what many say is the greatest goal of them all. Later, Enrique remarked, “With a pass like that, how could he miss?”

As the footballing world mourns the death of one of its most mesmerising sons, Enrique’s joke says something serious about both sides of the game and how genius can only shine alongside pragmatism. That is why it has been so refreshing in a week when genius has been rightly eulogised, that Liverpool’s evergreen James Milner has also grabbed his share of column inches and comment.

For many, the 34-year-old Yorkshireman should be seeing out the third act of his career from the sidelines, but instead he refuses to be merely a support. On Monday, Alyson Rudd in The Times suggested that he is not the understudy who outshines the lead actor, “but the chap who mends the ripped backdrop before jumping on the stage to pull together the chorus line.”

This week, the Guardian’s brilliant cartoonist, David Squires used the film ‘Being John Malkovich’ to celebrate Milner’s footballing ubiquity. At Liverpool’s new swanky £50 million training ground, it was revealed that there is already a door named after him. This after all, is a player who keeps on swinging.

Milner grabbed the eye at right-back and then in midfield, playing each role with equal insight in the 3-0 win over Leicester last weekend and while he couldn’t raise a weaker team to similar heights against Atalanta on Wednesday, this is an enduring footballer still vital to his club and manager’s ambitions.

It wasn’t long ago that his manager, Jurgen Klopp argued that should he need emergency childcare, or someone to help him move house, it would be Milner (or Millie as he calls him — a sweet sounding nickname in total contrast to its recipient’s granite-like features) who received the first call. You have to wonder if Milner, at his manager’s request, carried out the surgery on Virgil van Dijk’s recently injured knee.

Klopp always has his eye on his No.7, a player who was at Anfield when he arrived. When a game’s result need consolidating, you will hear ‘Get on, Millie,’ from the sidelines in those now much loved Germanic tones, and should an injury crisis befall his squad like it has in recent weeks, it is the knowledge that Milner is there that must make otherwise sleepless nights deliciously restful.

Milner has always been there for Klopp. Take the manager’s key moments at Anfield’s helm and there he is, always eager, always ready. In Klopp’s first game at Tottenham in October 2015, he’s galloping about the pitch, the new manager’s work ethic music to his sturdy thighs. The famous comeback against Borussia Dortmund at Anfield in 2016 and it’s Milner’s late, late scurry to the line and inviting cross that Dejan Lovren can’t resist. That crazy night in 2019, when Barcelona are bamboozled 4-0 and on the final whistle it is Milner crouched at the Kop end, his ankles being kicked, the ball stubbornly between his feet, frustrating Catalan ambition.

And then there is the last league game at Anfield before the 2020 lockdown. Liverpool nervously lead Bournemouth 2-1 and with Alisson in goal, lobbed late on, it is Milner who refuses to spectate. It is his outstretched foot that denies the meeting of ball and net, and with it the elusive title is one step closer.

They are moments and contributions on the pitch that might not make the final collage of Klopp’s tenure, but the manager is too astute to let their importance ever slide. Klopp calls his squad, ‘Mentality monsters,’ and, if he hasn’t already, in time he will see Milner as the nuts and bolts in that monster’s neck.

And it isn’t just on the pitch. “Millie is a leader in the dressing-room,” an insider at Anfield says. “He is always making sure that the players are switched on and ready. He helps with letting young players know what to do and what is correct in training. He is such a positive guy. With his input, players at the club from all over the world know how to reach the highest level.”

It is easy to think of Milner as some sort of footballing janitor, brown overcoat on, biros in his breast pocket, and he himself is wonderfully self-deprecating about his oft perceived boring tag. But this is a quality footballer who has quietly got on with winning three Premier League titles, the Champions League, The FA Cup, League Cup, European Super Cup, and a PFA Young Player of the Year award. Each time with an equal measure of skill and tenacity.

‘Versatile’, or even worse ‘utility’, are not words players enjoy having stuck to their kits for it somehow dilutes any real ability, so this week of all weeks let’s celebrate all sides of football. Let’s celebrate the unseen work, the behind-the-scenes cajoling. Yes the skill, but also that hushed grit. Let’s find time to celebrate James Milner. Jurgen Klopp certainly will.