James Milner interview: ‘There's no hiding place now. Cameras in the dressing room? That can't happen'

New York Times

2 days ago

The 24th season of James Milner's Premier League career began with a knock on the door of his hotel room at 5.15am on June 2, just eight days after the previous campaign had ended.
He was on a golfing trip in America with a group of friends, but while the others were sleeping off their jet lag before the day's play, Milner and fitness coach Adrian Lamb were ready for work.
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'The 2025-26 season starts here,' Lamb told him with a grin — and so it did, a gruelling gym session representing day one of a 10-week build-up to the new campaign for the Premier League's oldest player.
The Brighton & Hove Albion midfielder and Lamb go back a long way — to the summer of 2004, when the latter was taken aback by the sight of an 18-year-old Milner forcing his way to the front of the pack during a running drill on day one at Newcastle United under Sir Bobby Robson, an unexpected rival to the late Gary Speed's crown as the king of pre-season fitness testing.
Milner's Premier League story goes back even further than that: as a 16-year-old, straight out of school, suddenly thrust into the first-team squad at Leeds United, training alongside his heroes, making his debut and then becoming the Premier League's youngest goalscorer nine days before his 17th birthday while still living with his parents.
And look at him now, more than two decades later, five months short of his 40th birthday, 15 matches away from Gareth Barry's record of 653 Premier League appearances, counting down the days towards Brighton's opening game at home against Fulham on Saturday. He has come back for more despite spending most of last season on the sidelines, worrying that he might not even be able to walk again — never mind play again — after complications arising from knee surgery left him unable to move his foot for months.
Pre-season was very different in those days at Leeds and Newcastle in the early and mid-2000s. 'You didn't get the balls out for the first two weeks,' Milner says. 'These days, you get your fitness from your football sessions on the pitch. Those sessions are intense, but it's a lot more ball-oriented as opposed to that base running on beaches and in forests, doing drills until someone was sick.
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'In those days, there was one fitness coach (at a club), two maximum. These days, you come in for pre-season and the first two days are pure testing: running tests, jumping tests, nutrition tests, blood tests, fat tests, balance tests, concussion tests, strength in your legs, your teeth, your eyes.'
In his time at Liverpool, Milner was famed for winning the pre-season 'lactate test' — a brutal exercise which tests players' aerobic endurance and measures their lactic acid level — year after year.
Having joined Brighton two years ago, he is no longer allowed to do some of the exercises — not to spare his younger team-mates' blushes but 'because of my age and because they're looking after me'. 'But I'm still covering a good distance when I play,' he says. 'The high-intensity running and top speed have come down a little, but I can still get about the pitch. And they say as you get older, the first couple of yards are in the head.'
Did he ever question whether he wanted to carry on after last season's frustrations? Was there not a part of him that was starting to feel that, like Danny Glover's world-weary cop in the Lethal Weapon movies, he was 'getting too old for this s**t'?
'I always wanted to carry on,' he tells The Athletic at Brighton's training ground. 'But there were major doubts about whether I could. For a long time, I couldn't lift my foot up. That's probably enough for most people to have doubts about me. I can't really explain the feeling of trying to lift your toes, straining with everything you've got, and nothing is moving.
'Sean Duggan (Brighton's physio) did an incredible job looking after me all the way through. But with me not being able to lift my foot, we were both thinking it could be, 'That's it. Finished. Thanks for coming.'
'But we broke it down, took the time, worked hard to get the foot moving again and got the knee as strong as we could. It was a monumental effort on Sean's part to get me fit to come on at Spurs (in the final game of last season), and then the work has continued over the summer. I had literally a week off and then, from the start of June, I was straight on it again, trying to get ready for the season. Nothing changes.'
Nothing changes? It is tempting to say that, since 2002, Milner has been the one constant in an English game that has changed almost beyond recognition. That 2002-03 season was the last time David Beckham played in the Premier League, the last Manchester City played at Maine Road, the last Chelsea spent under the ownership of Ken Bates before their history — and the entire ownership model in English football — was transformed by the Roman Abramovich takeover.
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It is extraordinary to think that a player who played under a manager born in 1933 (Robson) is now working for one born in 1993 (Fabian Hurzeler). Likewise to think that a player who sat on the Leeds bench alongside former England goalkeeper Nigel Martyn (born 1966) for his Premier League debut in November 2002 — and immediately came up against a West Ham United full-back born in 1963 (Nigel Winterburn) — now shares the Brighton dressing room with a £30million ($41m) centre-forward born in 2007 (Charalampos Kostoulas).
'Mad, isn't it?' Milner says. 'We were working it out the other day and 15 of the lads here (Brighton) weren't even born when I made my debut — something daft like that. There are lads I played with at the start of my career whose sons I'm now playing with or against: (Bournemouth forward) Justin Kluivert, I played with his dad (Patrick) at Newcastle; I played with (Derby County midfielder) Bobby Clark at Liverpool and played with his dad (Lee) at Newcastle; (Brighton winger) Tommy Watson's girlfriend is (former Leeds full-back) Ian Harte's daughter.'
This season might even bring him up against Arsenal's 15-year-old prodigy Max Dowman, who was born on the final day of 2009 — by which time Milner was already an England international with more than 250 senior appearances to his name at club level. Without wishing to make him feel even older, Milner was probably already in his thirties at Liverpool, retired from international football, by the time Dowman first heard his name or found his image in a packet of football stickers.
It is one thing to break through early. It is quite another, having done so, to stay on the Premier League treadmill for 23 seasons and counting. It is often suggested that modern sports science has normalised longevity, but it isn't really true. Players such as Cristiano Ronaldo (40), Luka Modric (39), Lionel Messi (38) and indeed Milner are freakish exceptions.
Should Milner appear in the Premier League after his 40th birthday in January, he will be only the fifth outfield player to do so and the first since Ryan Giggs and Kevin Phillips, both of whom were born in 1973. Greater professional standards and advances in sports science might have helped to increase players' longevity, but set against this is the increasing speed and physical requirements of the modern game, which in many cases seems to shorten careers at the highest level, particularly among early starters.
Milner puts his longevity down to a combination of good fortune — he was an outstanding athlete from an early age — good influences (starting with his parents), good habits and a willingness to make sacrifices. As a teenager breaking into the first team at Leeds, he decided alcohol would not be part of his life. His unstinting dedication to his trade has at times seen him described as boring.
So many hugely talented players fall victim to pitfalls of one type or another early in their careers. Even among those who make it to the highest level, many seem jaded by the time they reach their late twenties or early thirties. You don't have to think too hard to come up with examples of those who have either lacked a Milner-type mentality in the first place or who, whether sated by success and riches or weighed down by negativity, seem to have lost it somewhere along the way.
He is diplomatic when it comes to other players' career trajectories — 'every situation is different and everybody is different' — but as a senior professional, dating back to his days at Liverpool and even before that at City, he has often felt compelled to take young players aside and spell out both the size of the opportunity and the number of pitfalls that lie ahead.
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'You've got to want to do it,' says Milner, whose drive was evident when working with him on his book about life as a footballer in 2019. 'You've got to have the love for it and the drive to do your best every day, season after season. The drive is probably the one reason I'm still playing. That thing of, 'I don't really feel like it today', I've never really had that.
'It's not easy when you're injured and you're in the gym every day, doing your rehab, or when you're getting up stupidly early on holiday to train. But if I didn't have the drive to do that, it would probably be time to retire.'
As a 16-year-old playing and scoring for Leeds in the Premier League in 2002, Milner was earning £70 a week and still required to perform all the duties of a first-year apprentice — 'cleaning the first-team players' boots, picking their dirty kit up off the dressing-room floor'.
With his first win bonus, he went out and bought 'my own phone line, my own Sky (satellite television) box and my own TV' for his childhood bedroom. It is a world away from the scenario faced by the Premier League's teenage stars today, many of them multi-millionaires while still in their teens.
In some ways, Milner feels the integration from academy to Premier League is smoother these days for young players such as Ethan Nwaneri, 18, and Dowman at Arsenal and 16-year-old Rio Ngumoha at Liverpool.
'They're having proper training sessions at academies three times a week from eight years of age, playing tournaments all over the world in front of big crowds, getting used to it,' he says. 'It is more natural in some ways. There's all the support they have in academies these days. They're treated as professionals from a very early age.
'But the money, the social media, the hype… I don't think any of that makes it easier. It becomes so easy to get ahead of yourself. It's all thrust on them so early and there's no hiding place for them, just because they're amazing at football and playing first team at 16, 17, 18.
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'Everything is so public. There is talk about having cameras in dressing rooms, which for me is an absolute no-go. That can't happen.
'Some people are wise beyond their years, like (Brighton's 20-year-old midfielder) Jack Hinshelwood, but you have others who might be equally talented who have had a different upbringing and different journey and they're expected to grow up in public and somehow not make mistakes.
'They're on holiday, trying to get away from the pressure of it, and people are there with camera phones, recording their every move. And it's going to grind you down. Then you get criticised, which is obviously a lot harder to take. And maybe it can get to that point where, for lads who have had all that from the start of their career, with that buzz and that energy, it starts to become a bit tiresome.
'And then if you're not getting a proper break in the summer, that becomes even harder. That's another topic in terms of how many games people are playing. Every other year, players should get a full rest in the summer. But instead, it's more and more games, less rest. With the Club World Cup and all of that now, it's getting ridiculous.
'If you're expecting players to play from 18 to 32/33, when are they going to get a break? Everyone will burn out. It's going to become completely impossible.'
If there had been no way back last season, if the doctors had told him it was over, would Milner have been able to make peace with that?
'One hundred per cent, yeah,' he says. 'I don't think it would be the ideal way to finish any career, but I've been incredibly fortunate. I've played two careers, really. Some people are lucky enough to get eight or 10 years in the Premier League. I've had… what's this? Season 24? Last season was unfortunate, but what have I got to moan about? You get to 34, 35 and you start to think, 'If it ends at any point now, I can't complain'.'
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He was extremely grateful for the offer of a new one-year deal at Brighton at the end of that injury-ravaged campaign. He doesn't know whether this one will be his last. 'But if it is — maybe, maybe not — it would be nice for it to be more positive than last year was,' he says.
What does he still hope to achieve? 'It's about being part of it and contributing to the team,' he says. 'That's always been it for me, to help drive the team and the club forward. I came here because I can see this club going places. This club is in a great position. We've got some great young players, a great young manager.
'The club's journey over the past 20 years or so has been incredible and I don't think it's beyond the realms of possibility to get into Europe again or win a trophy this season. There's so much potential here. We just need to keep pushing forward.'
Is breaking Barry's record something he thinks about? 'Only every time I do an interview and I get asked about it!' he says. 'I keep hearing it's 15 games (to equal it). Fifteen games when you're 21 doesn't sound like much. But this time last year, I started the first three league games and then I was out for nine months. I might play every game this year or I might not get anywhere near it.
'It's one of those: if I get it, fantastic, but to be honest I would rather be remembered for winning every domestic trophy with two clubs (Liverpool and City) or winning the Champions League (Liverpool) or scoring in the Premier League for Leeds when I was 16.'
Milner has had plenty of time to think about what might come next.
At one point, he doubted whether he would be tempted into management or coaching, but he has earned his UEFA B and A Licence qualifications and, though he is yet to do the Pro Licence, he spent his time on the sidelines last season smartly, working closely with Hurzeler and his staff on an informal basis 'to give me a taste for it'.
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'I wasn't doing any actual coaching on the pitch,' he says, 'but I did a lot of stuff with the manager and the coaches — game prep, videos, stuff like that. I learned a lot from being in the meeting rooms and the manager was open to me giving my opinion on certain things. That was great, and hopefully I was bringing some value from his point of view as well.
'Whenever I do hang up my boots, I would still need that competition, whether that's in football, out of football, management, whatever other options there might be. I would fancy running a marathon or a triathlon or Hyrox, which combines running with sledge pulls and things like that.
'But whenever it is, I think a little break will be on the cards. It's been quite intense for 24 years or whatever, so I'll want to spend some time with my family.'
The 24th season of Milner's Premier League career will involve a new shirt number: the No 20, which he will wear in honour of his former Liverpool team-mate Diogo Jota, who, along with his brother Andre Silva, died in a car crash in northern Spain on July 3.
'I loved the guy, absolutely loved him,' Milner says. 'Loved him as a player, loved him even more as a team-mate and a friend, absolutely loved him. Carlos (Baleba) wanted to change his number (Brighton's rising-star midfielder now has the 17 shirt), so the No 20 became available and it felt like the right thing for me to do. Every day when I put my kit on, I'll think of him.
'We were only together at Liverpool for three seasons and you might not have thought we had much in common — different nationalities, very different ages — but we hit it off immediately. Maybe it was because we were both so stubborn. Honestly, people say I'm stubborn, but Jots could give me a run for my money.
'He was an unbelievable guy, one of my favourite team-mates I've had in all my time playing. He was always up for a laugh, always winding people up. He was one of those you could put in any corner of the dressing room, next to any other player, and he would click with them straight away.'
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They messaged each other the night before the tragedy. 'Nothing major, just checking in and asking each other how things were going,' Milner says.
He was at Brighton's training ground when the terrible news began to circulate on social media that Thursday morning. 'Someone asked, 'Is that true?' and I didn't know at that point, obviously,' he says. 'I messaged someone at Liverpool to try to find out and… just horrific. Not many tougher days than that.'
Liverpool arranged a charter flight to take a group of players to Portugal the next day for the funeral. Milner was determined to be there even if it meant a five-hour drive from England's south coast after training. In his attempt to make it to Merseyside, he ended up snarled in traffic on the M25, so he flew out from Luton instead. He is hugely grateful to Brighton, as well as to Liverpool, for allowing him to pay his respects.
The footage of Jota's former team-mates arriving in his hometown of Gondomar late that evening, before the funeral the following day, is harrowing. Milner describes the whole experience as 'devastating' but says he felt 'privileged to be able to pay my respects with the other lads and to spend a small amount of time with his wife and his family, which was important. It's horrible to see a family go through that, but it's the least we can do, to show them we're there for them.'
Milner looks and sounds like someone who still cannot believe what has happened. He keeps coming back to the same words: 'devastating', 'horrific'.
At the same time, Jota's death has brought certain things into sharp context, about how fragile life — and within that, something like a football career — can be.
'It goes back to what we were saying about the season and life in general, about enjoying it, getting what you can out of it,' Milner says. 'As you go through life, you get these reminders that every day is precious. You only get one go at a football career. You only get one go at everything, so you've got to give it everything you've got.'
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