James Milner exclusive: ‘Run until the first person is sick!’ – How history-making Premier League title winner blends old school with the new

Embracing those advances has been a big part of Milner’s make-up, with the evergreen midfielder – who now forms part of Specsavers’ Best Worst Team project – telling GOAL when asked if he has always opened himself up to new ways of thinking: “I think I have. I think change is never easy. I’ve always been inquisitive. I’ve always asked questions. I’m not just going to jump through a hoop because you say it’s the right thing to do. I’m going to challenge, I’m going to ask why and, you know, give me the information. Why is this? Why are we doing this? Why are we doing this now? Why is it not tomorrow? Why do we do it these days and not every day? If it’s something that’s right, we should do it every single day instead of just these days. So I always try and learn as much as I can. 

“Once you have that information, we’re fortunate now with the amount of people we have working at the club. When I started, you maybe had a couple of physios, maybe a masseur part-time, something like that, one fitness coach. And now the fitness department’s probably got five, six people in. 

“So I’m doing GPS data, how far are you running? And it’s not just ‘right today, lads, first day of pre-season, we’re going to run until the first person’s sick, and when the first person’s sick, we’ll stop’. It’s ‘right, today we’re doing five kilometers and we’re going to do 750 high speed, and you need to hit over 90% peak speed for the day because it’s a high speed day and it’s sprint distance’. So it’s moved a long, long way from that. 

“And there’s no right or wrong because I think you gain so much from the old school way of ‘we’re running up these hills, we’re running until you’re sick’. That togetherness, that team spirit of going through that pain together, that ‘my legs are absolutely hanging’, but you keep going. And the things you gain from that, you might get more injuries and stuff like that potentially. But what you gain from the mindset togetherness, as opposed to how we do it now and everybody’s on a laptop – you know exactly how far you’ve run – you probably lose some things, but you gain some things. I feel pretty fortunate that I’ve experienced both sides of the game.”