'Like landing on the moon': How Milner set a near-unbreakable Premier League record

“What makes James Milner special? I don’t know where to start, to be honest,” former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp tells ESPN. He quickly flicks through the nine years they spent together, the trophies they won. “Of all the success we had at Liverpool, nothing would’ve happened without him. That’s how it is really.”

On Saturday, at age 40, Milner was named in the starting XI for Brighton & Hove Albion against Brentford for his 654th Premier League appearance, surpassing the landmark set by Gareth Barry in 2017. “Reaching that number of appearances is just like landing on the moon. Maybe it only happens once?” Klopp says.

Milner made 230 of his Premier League appearances under the German coach. By the time Klopp took charge of Liverpool in October 2015, Milner had already lived enough to satisfy a career. He made his debut on Nov. 10, 2002, at age 16; suffered the heartbreak of being transferred away from his boyhood club, Leeds United; then made doubting managers eat their words.

“He’s very different to a lot of people that I’ve met in my career,” former Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson, now at Brentford, tells ESPN. “You could never break him. No matter how bad the situation, no matter what’s thrown at him, I always felt that he would react in the right way and come back stronger, come back better.”

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His career has been so long that he played against England and Arsenal goalkeeper David Seaman, who is now 62 years old. He has faced or played alongside 49% of players who have ever appeared in the Premier League. And for the six clubs he has laced up his boots for (Leeds, Newcastle United, Aston Villa, Manchester City, Liverpool, Brighton), he has won three Premier Leagues, two FA Cups, two league cups and one Champions League. Oh, and the Intertoto Cup.

Pundit and former manager Graeme Souness once said you could never win anything with a team of James Milners. Well, the quiet lad from Leeds, who has been called boring and boasts the same haircut he had when he was 3, has proved that sentiment wrong time and time again. Now he has set a record that will surely last for decades — one that no one boring or ordinary could ever have claimed.

“I hope after game No. 780 or whatever he reaches, and he retires, whatever he does next, the world desperately needs people like him,” Klopp says. “I’m so happy for him that he’s reached the landmark. … Being part of something for eternity is really special.”

But what has propelled Milner to this feat? Teammates, managers, teachers, musicians, rugby players and a referee who have all gotten to know him agree: Milner is one of a kind.

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Steady professionalism

“He is probably the most disciplined, stubborn, professional football player I have ever worked with.” — Klopp

Milner’s unrelenting professionalism has anchored his career, even before he broke through into Leeds’ academy. In a school report, a 14-year-old Milner weighed whether to pursue golf or soccer. His heroes were Paul Gascoigne and Harry Kewell, so soccer won out.

Former Premier League referee Jon Moss was Milner’s PE teacher at Westbrook Lane Primary School when Milner was 11. “I think he cried a couple of times when we got beat for the school team,” Moss tells ESPN. “He was just that frustrated by it, though we didn’t get beat very often.” Everton called Milner for a trial, but that was canceled. So serendipity led him to Leeds, who signed Milner to their academy in 1996.

Lucy Ward, the former striker and TV pundit, mentored Milner and taught him at nearby Boston Spa School in her role as head of education and welfare at Leeds just before he made his Premier League debut. “He was more mature than the rest of his teammates, and the rest of them had good contracts, which doesn’t really help young lads focus the mind on education,” Ward tells ESPN. “… He was dedicated to making sure he made the best of himself. In 20 years — just in front of [AFC Bournemouth midfielder] Lewis Cook — he was the best in terms of attitude and commitment and humility.”

“If you said to me back then at 16 that he would still be playing in the Premier League when he’s 40, I’d have said, ‘Yes, I completely believe you,'” she adds. “You just know there’d be no stone left unturned to everything that he did.”

Milner played his way through the England age-grade sides, lining up alongside former Aston Villa striker Luke Moore for England under-15s and under-16s. “He had great fundamentals and mastered the basics in terms of being a professional even at that age,” Moore tells ESPN. “He was eating better than us, and stretching more than us. His only vice, I think, was golf.”

Milner was promoted to the first team by the late Terry Venables, who coached England and Barcelona before finishing his managerial career at Leeds. Players at the time remember seeing Milner turn up to training one day. “We knew all about him, of course, but when he came into training, he didn’t hold back at all,” former Leeds midfielder Eirik Bakke tells ESPN. “He just scored some unbelievable goals, and you’re like ‘f—, no,’ as you know you’ve got competition for places. He was one of the boys straight away, even though he looked like a schoolboy.”

After debuting off the bench against Nottingham Forest in November 2002, he scored his first for the club a month later at Sunderland. Simon Rix, bassist for the Kaiser Chiefs and die-hard Leeds fan, remembers watching Milner. “He was one of our prized assets but was being sent into the fields behind the training ground goals to collect balls, coming back with cuts down his legs,” he tells ESPN. “Looking back now, I feel this is a sign of the characteristics which would stand him in good stead.”

But by 2003-04, Leeds were in financial strife and were relegated at the end of the season. Milner was reluctantly moved to Newcastle. On the way out, he waived his loyalty bonus of approximately £150,000, a source told ESPN, hoping it would help his boyhood club. “He wasn’t trying to make people say, ‘Oh, well done, you. You’ve saved our club,'” Ward says. “He didn’t want to leave, but he’d never ever have put his foot down and said, ‘No, I’m staying here.'”

This professionalism and sense of what’s right carried him through his career. Klopp says that at Liverpool, Milner “ran the dressing room from an organization point of view.” It wasn’t until Milner left the club that the manager realized no one else knew how much players should be fined for being late. “We had to set [the rules] up completely new again because Milly left,” he says.

No one who knew him early in his career is surprised to see he is still going. “He’s the most professional player I’ve ever played with,” former England U21 and Aston Villa teammate Curtis Davies tells ESPN. “Him playing past 40 doesn’t shock me at all. He’s never needed anyone to tell him to do the right thing. The professionalism is just him.”

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Unmatched fitness

“I said, ‘Milly, you are already the fittest one here, stop running.’ But he just kept going.” — Klopp

Milner’s fitness and preseason tests are the stuff of Premier League legend. All of his ex-teammates remember how he’d always be the last man standing in fitness tests, or the one leading the grueling long-distance runs in preseason.

“He was literally, like, the fittest man in the world when I played with him,” Davies says. “You’ll get certain players who as soon as they’ve beaten everyone else slowly drop out. But he’ll max himself out.”

It’s always been like that. “Even at 11 years old, he had the physique of a much older man,” Moss says. Sam Allardyce remembers Milner’s drive when he coached him at Newcastle: “There are no miraculous stories about James, other than he has the pure dedication of Cristiano Ronaldo in how he looks after himself,” he tells ESPN.

It didn’t always go down well with teammates. Nedum Onuoha was in the same England U21 side as Milner and Davies, and played again with Milner at Manchester City. “I mean this as a compliment, but it’s just really annoying!” Onuoha tells ESPN, laughing at the frustrating memories. “If there’s a chart and it’s ‘Who’s going to jump the highest in training today?’ Well, he’s going to jump to his maximum. … He gives 100% to everything, and you feel you must do the same.”

Longtime Manchester United winger Ashley Young played alongside Milner for Villa and England. “I remember at Villa under Martin O’Neill and him not thinking that we’d trained enough — that definitely pissed people off,” he tells ESPN. “Milly has lungs that keep going. They just never stop.”

Former rugby league star and current rugby union coach Kevin Sinfield has raised more than £10 million for charity since retirement and got to know Milner through the James Milner Foundation, which works closely with the foundation at Leeds Rhinos, Sinfield’s old club. “I know some people at Brighton, and I’ll always ask, ‘How’s James going?'” Sinfield says. “And they’ll tell me he’s still winning the fitness test; he’s still driving standards and he’s still raising the program. That’s a huge compliment for someone of that age.”

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A fierce competitive fire

“You cannot get to this point without being incredibly determined. At the beginning of our player-coach relationship, it was clear immediately I needed to find a way to get him on my side, because he’s so influential in so many ways.” — Klopp

Davies and Onuoha remember the urine tests (to measure hydration) from their U21 days. “Milly’s score was always the best score. He was always the most hydrated,” Onuoha says. “And you’d be like, ‘Oh, what a nerd.’ He’s staying up and staying hydrated through the night.”

One day, Onuoha decided to beat him, guzzling water all day and night before his test. When it came time for the results, he and Davies were there to see Milner’s reaction. “You could tell by his face he was really pissed off,” Davies says. “It was his thing.”

In his book “Ask a Footballer,” Milner said, “I’ve always been desperate to prove people wrong, desperate to be the best I can, to win every match I play, to win trophies and desperate not to lose.” Of Souness’ comment that a team of James Milners couldn’t win anything, back when Souness was his manager at Newcastle, Milner said: “It was a kick in the teeth. If anything, it drove me on.”

“I think his motivation does come from people doubting him,” Young said. “It’s the mentality he’s always had — the mentality to be better than anyone else and the day before.”

“His commitment to do everything he can to help the team and to be successful, it’s unrivaled,” Onuoha says. “Whether it’s around, say, being in the gym, whether it’s getting the massages before, whether it’s making sure you arrive at a good time, making sure you watch the video analysis of teams, making sure you’ve practiced your crosses, your penalties.”

Henderson always reinforces Milner’s importance to the success they had at Liverpool, and how Milner was able to lift his spirits and provide a good energy when the team needed it most. “He can really push himself into a dark place [mentally], but despite the pain, he keeps fighting,” he says. “You need those types of people in games, who dig in and go to the final moments.”

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Astonishing versatility

“When you think about James, people would probably say an honest, top professional. But I can tell you, he could do it all.” — Klopp

In the 2016-17 preseason, Milner was called into Klopp’s office. “I asked him, ‘What do you prefer, right or left back?’ and he said, ‘Neither.’ I knew the answer before as I wanted him to play left back. I asked him, but his answer didn’t really matter. He was not happy.”

Milner played most of that campaign at left back and excelled, but he was surely relieved when the club brought in Andy Robertson the next summer. Having started his career as a winger, Milner drifted inside to central midfield at Aston Villa in 2009-10, and started in central defense once and played a flurry of matches as a false nine for City. He was frequently found in the No. 10 spot throughout his career, and once Klopp shifted him to fullback, he played both sides.

In 441 Premier League starts, Milner has started at every position on the field save for goalkeeper. Versatility can lend itself to underappreciation; playing everywhere but never locking down a spot makes it easier to fly under the radar. But Milner’s adaptability has proved to be a career-defining virtue.

“If he was told, ‘You are going in goal,’ he would make sure to have a special session with the goalie coach, finding out everything about the opposition’s crossing,” Davies says. “The biggest compliment I can give him is he was never a fill-in. He could play anywhere on the field. That’s just the way he is.”

Young, who has also played nearly everywhere on the pitch, adds: “That’s key to everything, especially nowadays in the last six or seven years. Managers are playing different formations so players are adjusting all the time. If you’ve got a good football brain, you can play in different positions.”

Klopp remembers using Milner briefly at center back in 2020-21 amid Liverpool’s injury crisis that took out Virgil van Dijk, Joe Gomez and Joel Matip. “Sometimes there was tension there, but we had a brilliant relationship, even though he was not always happy with my decisions.”

Klopp thinks Milner’s versatility has been a key factor in him having this longevity. “If you are fixed on one position, it’s pretty clear over the years in each club there will be a player in your position either as good as you or better. They’ll be younger, faster, stronger, better in heading. So the more positions you can play, it gives you a longer lifetime.

“… But the most important factor he has is his general skill set. He has absolutely everything and shows only 50, 60% of it. Both his right and left foot are excellent, he has decent speed, he’s fast, he can dribble, he’s good in tight spaces, good in big spaces. He has an incredible attitude and makes it clear the fancy stuff will not be there on matchday. From a skill set perspective, he’s one of the top five players I have worked with.”

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Boring … or simply one of a kind

“If you want to have [your vacation] perfectly organized … take James. James will sort it — the driver will pick you up there, the hotel will be perfect, the rooms great. That’s not boring for me. That’s well organized and perfectly structured.” — Klopp

Milner has never been one to deliver a spicy interview quote or appear in tabloids. Toss in his reputation as a model professional, being teetotal and his matter-of-fact manner, and there was a perception outside of the dressing room that he was dull.

The Boring James Milner social media account gained traction about seven years ago, playing on his supposed dullness. The first thing Milner does in his book is address some myths generated about him via the account. “I believe it’s standard for a book of this type to begin with a shocking revelation, so here goes. My name is James Milner and I’m not a Ribena-holic. I don’t really drink much tea either. I actually prefer coffee. And it gets worse: I can’t iron.” So there goes the myth he irons his socks. But is James Milner still boring?

Those who know him say the answer is no, he is unique. When Milner started going to Spain on holiday, he got frustrated at not being able to order in Spanish, so he taught himself the language. To fill spare time the past few years in Brighton, with his two children settled in school up north, he taught himself the piano. “You can’t be as good as him and be dull,” Allardyce says.

Young agrees that Milner’s boringness is a preconception. “He’s not [boring] at all. He’s just always busy,” he says.

“He plays into that ‘boring James Milner’ thing, and I think if he was actually boring, he’d probably be more resentful of it,” Davies says. “But instead, he sort of uses it. Yes, he’s been different to others throughout his career, and though he doesn’t drink, he’s still part of every social activity. And if the thing finishes at 4 a.m., James is there at 4 a.m.”

Milner is incredibly proud of his foundation, which helps children get into sport in the north of England. They’ve held gala events, with the Kaiser Chiefs playing two of them. “They were always really well attended by past and present teammates, which I think shows something of his character,” bassist Rix says.

“I’ve loved supporting the foundation,” Sinfield says. “He’s done a lot of work in Leeds and he’s a caring guy. He wants to help people and is just a wonderful role model for sports people right across the world. I think the big message is good guys can win, and good guys can have longevity if they look after themselves.”

And what about the man himself? What’s his assessment of the tongue-in-cheek claim he’s boring? “Maybe being boring has helped keep me going in the Premier League … still the same lad from Leeds, still teetotal, still with the same girl and still with pretty much the same haircut.”