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When James Milner made his Premier League debut for Leeds he was 16 years old. He came on as an 84th-minute substitute for Jason Wilcox, the current Manchester United director of football, to help close out a win over West Ham in which Harry Kewell, Nick Barmby and Mark Viduka scored. Pathé news reports from the time reveal that Westlife were top of the charts and a few days later Michael Jackson would dangle his baby from a Berlin balcony. Fabian Hürzeler, Milner’s current gaffer at Brighton, was a nine-year-old urchin, learning his times tables and being tucked into his race-car bed. More than 20 years later, Milner is 40, still playing in the top flight, and is the living personification of a hard-working, clean-living, low maintenance model professional who has finally eclipsed Gareth Barry to make the all-time Premier League appearance record his own. Frankly, after 23 seasons at six different clubs doing the bare minimum just to stay relevant, the most obvious conclusion to draw is that the universally admired and well-liked “Millie” is apparently not all he’s cracked up to be.
Let’s crunch those numbers, eh? While Milner’s start for Brighton against Brentford on Saturday may have taken him to 654 appearances, finally overtaking Barry’s longstanding record of 653, in terms of “minutes spent on the pitch”, Milner isn’t even in the top flight’s top 10 toilers. For every minute Barry spent out there with his sleeves rolled up while he got things done and took care of business, Milner could be found spending several more kicking his heels on the substitutes’ bench while his more industrious and reliable teammates got on with the hard graft. While Barry may have lost his Premier League record, he played 13,874 more minutes than the man who just took it – the equivalent of 154 full matches. Put in perspective it could be argued the only accolade Milner ought to crow about is his record number of more than 200 top-flight appearances off the bench. While Barry was developing industrial-grade calf muscles and the thousand-yard stare of a man who has tracked back for two decades, Milner was ostensibly enjoying a series of very well-paid 15-minute jogs to keep his heart rate slightly above resting.
