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Liverpool signed their Steven Gerrard replacement for free without anyone realising
James Milner is just 33 games short of equalling Gareth Barry’s record total of 652 Premier League appearances.
Having signed a one-year contract with Brighton & Hove Albion, which includes the option of an additional year, you wouldn’t bet against the former Liverpool star making such a record his own in the months ahead.
In truth, the 37-year-old could potentially overtake Barry before the 2023/24 season is out. Despite very much being a squad player in his final seasons at Anfield, he still made 31 Premier League appearances last season, after all, even if only seven of those outings were starts.
But with the 2016/17 season, where he filled in so admirably at left-back and made 36 appearances, being the only campaign where he has made more than 32 league appearances since his final year at Aston Villa in 2009/10, the chances are the veteran will require a second year at the Amex Stadium to become the record-holder.
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Should Milner’s second year on the South Coast be activated, he’ll be 39 when his contract expires. Even now, you can already say with confidence that the former England international will be looking beyond such a landmark and aiming to become the fifth outfield player over the age of 40 to play in the Premier League after Gordon Strachan, Kevin Phillips, Ryan Giggs, and Teddy Sheringham.
Such is his longevity, six of his Liverpool team-mates, who made appearances for the Reds in 2022/23, were actually born after the veteran made his professional debut for Leeds United on November 10, 2002. Yet Milner is showing no signs of slowing down.
“We have different plans for Milly, but Milly wants to keep playing,” Jurgen Klopp conceded back in January, alluding to his would-be exit in hindsight. “And when you see him play the other night (against Wolves), I think everyone understands that. You can’t judge him because of his age or whatever.
“He is 37, but doesn’t look a day like this. When he is in training, he is there, full throttle. He is an incredibly important player and you saw this on the pitch as well. It is not that Milly expects to play 64 games a season, but in 64 games a season Milly could be incredibly important.
“That is how it is. I think Milly has reached 600 games in his career, right? And I think most of them are for Liverpool if I am right, probably. So even a player who had a few clubs can end up at his club and I can consider Liverpool his club.”
It is telling that Klopp wanted to retain Milner’s services at Anfield, despite his veteran status, only for no offer to be forthcoming. Alas, the Reds’ loss is Brighton’s gain with the 37-year-old now set to be ‘incredibly important’ for Robert De Zerbi’s side as they compete in Europe for the first time in their history.
Yet whatever he achieves at the Amex, it would usurp Milner’s Anfield record. Making 332 appearances, scoring 26 goals and registering 45 assists, during his eight years on Merseyside, only Roberto Firmino has been selected more by Klopp during his managerial career. Meanwhile, the Yorkshireman won every major honour on offer to him for the Reds, and featured in 10 of the 12 finals Liverpool competed during his time with the club.
Milner is a modern Reds legend, there is no disputing that, and he’s also the best free transfer in the club’s history. But even though he is now 37, it still feels unbelievable when you acknowledge what stage of his career he was at when first moving to Anfield.
Signed on a Bosman after his Man City contract expired in the summer of 2015, the midfielder was 29 when he joined Liverpool. Having played for Leeds, Newcastle United, and Aston Villa prior to his £26m move to the Etihad, no-one would have foreseen what he was about to achieve in the second half of his career on Merseyside.
Reports at the time claimed that the midfielder has rejected a £165k-a-week contract to stay at Man City in favour of lesser terms with the Reds. Said to be paid around £150k-a-week, the lure of a more regular role with Liverpool, having been nothing more than a sometimes overlooked squad player at the Etihad, and in his preferred central midfield position no less, was a key factor in his decision.
But while his arrival was a shrewd signing by then-manager Brendan Rodgers, it was perhaps also an underwhelming one, to an extent. Especially when you consider Milner inherited the famous number seven shirt, last worn by Luis Suarez, and, appointed vice-captain two months after joining, was essentially an experienced replacement for the legendary Steven Gerrard following his free transfer to LA Galaxy the same summer.
All three decisions prompted groans from Kopites. Still wrongly perceived as ‘Boring James Milner’, while fans saw the sense in his signing, he was still an unwanted replacement for the Reds’ favourite son who supporters weren’t ready to see leave in the first place.
Replacing Gerrard at Anfield has been an impossible task, with the midfielder the greatest player in the club’s history. Many have failed to live up to ‘next Gerrard’ labels, while captain Jordan Henderson initially struggled under the weight of such comparisons before forging his own Reds story.
Naby Keita became the first player to inherit Gerrard’s famous number eight shirt, but while, like Milner, he won every major honour at Anfield, injuries ensured he never fully lived up to such high expectations before departing for Werder Bremen on a free transfer this summer. Meanwhile, ‘long-awaited heir’ Jude Bellingham dashed such dreams by instead joining Real Madrid.
Yet rather than finding their ‘next Gerrard’, it seems the ‘unwanted’ successor was the perfect replacement for the Liverpool legend all along. While Milner might be a very different player, he certainly quietly stepped up the mantle time and time again during his eight years on Merseyside.
Milner is no like-for-like with Gerrard as a player. He was never going to step up and grab a game by the scruff of the neck, changing the tide and rescuing victory from the claws of defeat virtually single-handedly.
Forget your 30-yard screamers, Hollywood passes, and Roy of the Rovers headlines. Milner’s impact was always a lot more understated.
Alongside Henderson, he was the leader Liverpool needed on and off the pitch. The pair set the examples that everyone else followed across the board, from training and matches right down to even in the AXA Training Centre canteen. Captaining the Reds 98 times, the endorsements from team-mates reiterating such a fact have been constant over the past eight years.
The best example of Milner’s leadership would come when he spurned a Premier League winter break in favour of supporting the club’s youngsters as they locked horns with Shrewsbury Town in an FA Cup replay back in 2020, training with them the day before the match and speaking to them in the dressing room at Anfield.
However, the 37-year-old is far more than just a glorified cheerleader. He has always stepped up when Liverpool needed him most, constantly putting the club’s best interests before his own.
While he joined the Reds to play in his preferred central-midfield position, he reluctantly spent a campaign at left-back in 2016/17 after Klopp failed to land a desired target. Even after Andy Robertson was brought in the following summer, he continued to line up at full-back on either flank when required.
And, in a trait he shared with Gerrard, he was a superb penalty taker. The 37-year-old scored a number of vital spot-kicks for Liverpool when the stakes were at their highest, with strikes against the likes of Leicester City and Cardiff City in Premier League title races immediately coming to mind.
Scoring 19 penalties for the Reds, only seven players have converted more. Meanwhile, coming from 21 efforts, his 90.48% success-rate makes him the fifth-most prolific player in Liverpool history from 12 yards.
Then there’s the assists. In the Premier League era, only Gerrard, Steve McManaman, Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Andy Robertson, Jordan Henderson, and Robbie Fowler have set up more than his 45 assists. His most famous is arguably providing the cross for Dejan Lovren’s late winner in the 4-3 victory over Borussia Dortmund in April 2016, while he remains the player with the most Champions League assists in a single season courtesy of setting up nine goals in 2017/18 as the Reds marched to the final.
His never-say-die attitude also stands out. Who can forget his outstanding acrobatic goal-line clearance against AFC Bournemouth in March 2020? Then 34, he would sprint back to scoop Ryan Fraser’s goal-bound lob away when a goal had seemed certain.
Liverpool were 2-1 up at the time, so it clinched a valuable three points. Yet they were also 25 points clear at the top of the table. Milner was taking no chances.
He might rarely have scored the goals that won Liverpool matches, but he was vital to victories in so many other ways. One of his most famous substitute appearances saw him come on at half-time for the injured Robertson in the Reds’ 4-0 victory over Barcelona as they booked their place in the 2019 Champions League final. As long as he was on the pitch, you knew Klopp’s men would keep on fighting until the very end.
“It is Milly’s mentality,” Klopp lauded after the 37-year-old’s final Anfield appearance for Liverpool. “I don’t want to underestimate his football, because he played really good football here, and today again.
“But the way he comes in a game, oh my god. Whoever will do that in the next few years, it’s a high high bar because how many games he won for us in this way is insane.”
A two-time Premier League winner with Man City prior to joining the Reds, Milner was one of the few Liverpool players to have actually won anything in their careers when Klopp took over as manager in October 2015. The German might have successfully turned doubters into believers, but he couldn’t have done it without that dose of winning mentality.
“Nothing positive that happened in the last seven and a half years would have happened without James Milner,” the German declared in May, and has insisted countless times before. “I think I am the manager he played the most games for, and my English is not good enough to properly express the incredible respect I have for him.”
Liverpool’s Gerrard replacement was under their noses all along. Now, as Milner departs for pastures new at Brighton, the Reds’ search for their next successor continues.
Alexis Mac Allister has already arrived, while he won’t be the only new midfield signing this summer as part of a long-awaited engine-room revamp. But if any of Liverpool’s new signings go on to enjoy even half the Anfield career of Milner, they will have still achieved more than most.
“I’ve loved every minute here,” he told the club website after his final Anfield appearance. “Unbelievable club, the size of the club, the history before you come in, and we’ve managed to create our own history.
“Travelling around the world, seeing the support we have, the special nights we’ve had here, the European nights, the unbelievable games, obviously Dortmund and Barca always stand out but other periods in games. Those memories will stay with you forever.
“I’m Leeds through and through and always have been and always will be – but I never probably thought that another club would get into me as much as Liverpool has. That says everything about the place and the fans and the history and what we’ve created here, but also the group of people.
“I’ve been lucky enough to share that dressing room and the people at the training ground and the people that have been here so long – that’s what football clubs are about.
“I’ve been lucky enough to play here for eight years and ultimately the club belongs to the fans. I’ve been lucky enough to wear the No.7 shirt and [it] probably won’t be seen in the full-back positions again maybe! But hopefully I’ve filled the shirt with everything that a Liverpool player should.
“It’s going to be sad to leave and [leave] the people but I’m looking forward to the challenge. I’m fortunate now that we’ve managed to achieve what we have and pretty much what you wanted to achieve when you come here. That doesn’t happen too often, does it?”
Over the past eight years, Kopites have grown well-aware that there will never be another Steven Gerrard. But they also know that there is only one James Milner.
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