The atmosphere inside Anfield helped Liverpool to victory over Manchester City. In an era of agents’ fees and expected goals it was a reminder of what football should be about

Football has increasingly become a sport judged on tangibles. This is the age of expected goals and big chances, of statisticians sitting behind laptops and pundits sitting in front of touch screens looking for definite reasons to explain why results happen. The discourse has changed and can be illuminating. Equally, it can be needlessly complicated and corrosive.

Because, at its heart, football is just how Bill Shankly described it: “terribly simple”. Yes, there are laws and regulations but none so overbearing as to wreck the flow of a game should those involved be in the mood to put on a show. It is easy to follow and, crucially, open to being affected not only by talent but emotion.

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Which brings us on to what occurred at Anfield on Wednesday evening. In case you missed it, Manchester City were hammered. The best team in the country, champions-elect no less, reduced to wrecks by rampant hosts, and if one image summed up the torment it was that of Pep Guardiola striding to the edge of his technical area midway through the first half and gesturing to his side to stay calm. Liverpool were 2-0 up; soon afterwards they scored again and there was nothing City’s manager or players could do about it.

How did this happen? Most will point to Liverpool excellent display as the principal cause. Quite right, too. But something else was also at play, an inexplicable, intangible force. How do I know? Because I helped create it.

Much was made about Anfield’s atmosphere in the buildup to this Champions League quarter-final. Almost as soon as the draw was made, Liverpool supporters took to Twitter to proclaim how the noise and colour of a European night at the home of European royalty would prove too much for their visitors from across the M62. In turn, City supporters rolled their collective online eyes and dismissed Anfield’s legendary atmosphere as a myth. One even suggested, with dripping sarcasm, that those “flags will really intimidate David Silva and Kevin de Bruyne”.

I’m not going to lie, that particular tweet riled me, mainly because I know some of the people who fly those flags and have seen first-hand what they can help generate under Anfield’s lights.

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The standout occasion remains that 2005 Champions League semi-final second leg against Chelsea. Anfield hadn’t rocked so hard since David Fairclough scored against Saint-Étienne in 1977 and you could see Chelsea’s players – who, it should be remembered, had been crowned champions a few days earlier – struggling with the intensity of it all. John Terry was reduced to tears and later described the atmosphere that evening as the best he has played in.

After Chelsea came victories against teams such as Internazionale, Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund, and while it would be foolish to suggest it was purely, or even largely, the Anfield atmosphere that got Liverpool over the line, neither should the role of the home crowd be dismissed out of hand. Anfield’s European din may be overly hyped but the fact it is so often talked about, by neutrals as well as Liverpool fans, means it must be rooted in something felt and feared.

It was certainly felt on Wednesday, no more so than in Block 305 of the Kop. Frenzied on the most mundane of occasions, it turned practically feral up there.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Mohamed Salah’s opening goal was the cue for bedlam.’ Photograph: Matt McNulty/JMP/Rex/Shutterstock

I got to my seat just before 7pm and the singing had started. As kick-off got closer it got louder and more furious, and by the time the fella who stands to my left turned up wild with adrenaline I knew it was going to be one hell of a night.

Mohamed Salah’s opening goal was the cue for bedlam. Bodies flew this way and that, hugs were given as well as received, and the noise became deafening. City kept probing but they were clearly rocked. At the opposite end of the ground, meanwhile, the away fans appeared shellshocked. We did warn you, lads.

Given the senseless attack that took place on City’s team bus before kick-off, this was not a night for all Liverpool fans to feel proud, and each and everyone of us should be aware that despite having a 3-0 lead to take to the Etihad Stadium next week, this tie is not over.

For now, however, Liverpool supporters should, in the main, feel chuffed with their team and themselves. This was a collective triumph – one spurred on by the other. Anfield at its best.

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And to any non-Reds reading this with increasing cynicism, allow me to ask this: why not take at least a modicum of pleasure from the possibility that a group of supporters can make a difference to their team’s display? Surely that is something to cherish in a climate where figures, financial as well as statistical, increasingly rule supreme.

I don’t know about you but I didn’t get into football to know about agents’ fees and xG trends. I did so because, at the age of eight, the sport took a grip of me in a way I could hardly explain. There was a intangible magic I wanted more of and it’s that which keeps pulling me back in.

What a night.