James Milner’s 24th Premier League season began at 5:15 a.m. on June 2, with a knock on his hotel room door just eight days after the previous campaign had concluded. While his friends slept off jet lag during a golfing trip in America, Milner and fitness coach Adrian Lamb were starting their day’s work. “The 2025-26 season starts here,” Lamb said, marking the beginning of a gruelling 10-week pre-season for the league’s oldest player.
This dedication is nothing new. Lamb recalls being taken aback in the summer of 2004 when an 18-year-old Milner challenged the legendary Gary Speed’s dominance in fitness testing at Newcastle United. Milner’s journey began even earlier, when as a 16-year-old fresh out of school, he was thrust into the Leeds United first team, training with his heroes and becoming the Premier League’s youngest-ever goalscorer nine days shy of his 17th birthday.
Now, more than two decades later and five months from his 40th birthday, he is just 15 matches away from equalling Gareth Barry’s record of 653 Premier League appearances. His return is all the more remarkable after spending most of last season sidelined with a severe knee injury. Complications from surgery left him unable to move his foot for months, sparking fears he might never walk properly again, let alone play.
Pre-season training has transformed since his early days at Leeds and Newcastle. “You didn’t get the balls out for the first two weeks,” Milner says. “It was a lot of base running on beaches and in forests, doing drills until someone was sick.” Today, fitness is integrated into intense, ball-oriented sessions. Modern pre-seasons also involve extensive testing, from bloodwork and nutrition analysis to balance and concussion screening, a far cry from when a club had one or two fitness coaches at most.
At Liverpool, Milner was famous for repeatedly winning the notoriously tough pre-season lactate test. Now at Brighton, certain exercises are off-limits, not to spare his younger teammates but to manage his workload. “They’re looking after me,” he explains. “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.”
Despite last season’s frustrations, Milner insists his desire to continue never wavered, though he admits there were “major doubts about whether I could.” He adds, “I can’t really explain the feeling of trying to lift your toes, straining with everything you’ve got, and nothing is moving. We were both thinking it could be, ‘That’s it. Finished.’” Thanks to the monumental efforts of Brighton physio Sean Duggan, Milner made his return in the final game of last season. His summer break lasted just one week before he was back to training.
Since his debut in 2002, Milner has been a constant in a game that has changed almost beyond recognition. He played under a manager born in 1933, Sir Bobby Robson, and now works for one born in 1993, Fabian Hurzeler. He shares a dressing room with players who were not even born when he started his career, including some whose fathers were his former teammates, such as Justin Kluivert and Bobby Clark. “Mad, isn’t it?” he remarks.
While modern sports science has extended careers, players like Milner, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Luka Modric remain outliers. The increasing physical demands of the game often shorten careers, particularly for those who start young. Milner attributes his longevity to good fortune, positive influences, disciplined habits, and a willingness to make sacrifices, such as abstaining from alcohol since his teenage years.
His unwavering drive has been key. “You’ve got to have the love for it and the drive to do your best every day, season after season,” he says. “That thing of, ‘I don’t really feel like it today,’ I’ve never really had that. If I didn’t have the drive to get up stupidly early on holiday to train, it would probably be time to retire.”
Milner reflects on the different world young players enter today. As a 16-year-old at Leeds, he earned £70 a week while still performing apprentice duties like cleaning boots. Today’s teenage stars are often multi-millionaires. While academies prepare players professionally from a young age, Milner believes the money, social media, and hype make it harder. “It becomes so easy to get ahead of yourself,” he cautions. “There’s no hiding place. They’re expected to grow up in public and somehow not make mistakes.”
He also expresses concern over player burnout from an increasingly congested fixture list. “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, when are they going to get a break? Everyone will burn out.”
If last season’s injury had ended his career, Milner says he would have made peace with it. “I’ve been incredibly fortunate. I’ve played two careers, really. You get to 34, 35 and you start to think, ‘If it ends at any point now, I can’t complain’.” He remains focused on contributing to Brighton’s success, believing the club has the potential to win a trophy or return to European competition.
As for breaking Barry’s appearance record, he says, “If I get it, fantastic, but to be honest I would rather be remembered for winning every domestic trophy with two clubs or winning the Champions League.”
During his time on the sidelines last season, Milner explored his interest in coaching, working closely with Hurzeler and his staff on game preparation and analysis. While he hasn’t completed his UEFA Pro Licence, the experience gave him a valuable taste of life on the other side. Whenever he does retire, he anticipates needing a competitive outlet, whether in management, marathons, or triathlons.
This season, Milner will wear the No. 20 shirt in honour of his former Liverpool teammate Diogo Jota, who died in a car crash in July. “I loved the guy, absolutely loved him,” Milner says. “Loved him as a player, loved him even more as a teammate and a friend. Every day when I put my kit on, I’ll think of him.” The two, despite their age difference, shared a close bond. Milner recalls messaging him the night before the tragedy. Upon hearing the news, he made a determined effort to attend the funeral in Portugal, a gesture for which he is grateful to both Brighton and Liverpool.
The experience was devastating but put his own career into perspective. “It goes back to what we were saying about life in general, about enjoying it, getting what you can out of it,” Milner reflects. “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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