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James Milner tells Sky Sports how Virgil van Dijk compares to Vincent Kompany.
James Milner tells Sky Sports how Virgil van Dijk compares himself to Vincent Kompany, discusses his own versatility, and raises the lid to educate his younger peers about the Spice Girls …
The Liverpool man spoke to Kelly Cates, Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville about The soccer show and open on a wide range of topics.
In addition to stating his goal of adding many more medals to his collection while at Anfield, Milner discussed the benefits and drawbacks of playing in a variety of positions throughout his career, explained what kind of manager he would be, and explained how he feels about going through. from teenage feeling to senior statesman in the locker room.
Evolving into an experienced figure
Milner was just 16 years old when he made his first team debut for Leeds. His last cameo against West Ham in November 2002 made him the second youngest player in Premier League history at the time, and he made headlines on Boxing Day that year when he became the youngest player in score in the competition in a 2- 1 win over Sunderland.
Now 34 and 18 as a professional under his belt, Milner is, by some distance, the oldest regular on the Liverpool team. So do you feel like an old statesman in the game?
Milner is a senior figure in Liverpool and guides his young stars
“Not in my body. I think in terms of when you look at the locker room and see some of the birth dates or there is some music in the gym and some of the boys have never heard of the people singing it.” I think it was a few years ago when Joe Gomez had not heard of the Spice Girls! That surprised me a little, if I’m honest.
“Things like that give you a wake-up call, but I feel good and obviously you just want to play as long as you can. It’s weird when you see your status on the team, on the team and the position changing as you go, remember it’s one of the young boys, who always goes first to the center of the square when you do rounds and things like that.
“Little by little, over time, things change and when things go wrong, people look at you to try to help, while before you can hide a little more. I think I’ve been lucky in terms of who I’ve played with and with the leaders I’ve played with. You’re trying to see how they’ve always dealt with things and put them at your own game and try to be a positive influence on the team. “
What advice can Milner offer to young players at Liverpool?
“Throughout your career, you see so many amazing players who haven’t made it to the level that they really should have been due to various things like taking your eyes off the ball, a bit of bad luck or injury.”
“There are a lot of things I’ve done wrong or mistakes you’ve made in your career, in games and other things as well. Also, I think you’re just trying to stop everything that happens before players lose that focus.” or make mistakes that you don’t need to make.
0:32 Milner says winning the Champions League last season has given Liverpool players the confidence to go on and claim more cutlery.
“We see a lot of players break into the scene and then fight a little bit while accepting it. Anything you can say or any way you can guide them to help them stay on the right track is important.”
“That is the role that changes, but the dressing room we have in Liverpool is very strong. The coach has always established a great team spirit, rules and a way of doing things, but also, the players organize it too. If everyone they are inside before training in the gym making their own pieces, if someone is not there they will groove and call them.
“That is a key part. They are all together and that is a great advantage of the team that has been built in Liverpool. They all control it together and not only the older boys. Trent Alexander-Arnold is young, but with the experience of the games he’s played in, he’s obviously a great player, but he knows he can also speak his mind.
“Everyone feels part of this, even the youngest, and that’s the most important thing. Everyone feels part of the team, the team and the club.”
Rewinding the clock until 2002 and its first goal, at just 16 years and 356 days, what are the outstanding memories of that achievement?
Milner scored his first Premier League goal at just 16 years old
“It seems like such a long time ago, and you see the size of the shirts and the shades, how much has changed. Obviously, a long time ago, but you really don’t think about it when you are that age. You are just looking for the following: enter the reserves, get into the first team, can you get a game, can you stay in the team?
“But when you look back now and think I was doing my GCSEs a few months before and now that your classmates are looking at you, it is probably somewhat more important to look at it now than when you were doing that.”
Versatile, but what is your best position?
Throughout his career, Milner has been used in a variety of positions. From midfield to widths, from full-back to defensive and attacking roles in midfield. But what was your preferred position as a young player and what has become your best position during your time in the Premier League?
Milner moved to midfield at Aston Villa
“When I got there, I was always a winger really. I played with the right or left wing. I played a little in midfield and when I was very young a little bit forward, but mostly it was on the wing. I broke into the Leeds team in the wing and the first time I moved to the middle was with Aston Villa really.
“I still think [central midfield] It is my best position. If you look at the seasons I’ve had when I played solidly in midfield, the first at Aston Villa, I got into the team of the year, I got into the World Cup team and I think I was the young PFA player in the year of that year.
“Then the next time I had a solid season it was with Liverpool and I got quite a few assists for a few years in Europe and in the league.”
“In terms of that outing, I would say midfield, but you play where you’re asked to play, and different teams need different things. You have to find a way to fit in with certain teams and what the team needs.”
“I will never be the star of the team and the team will build around me, so I think it is important that as a player you have to adapt to that team and what is required. Sometimes you can be more attacking and other times it is more defensive, covering someone else. Sometimes it’s giving the other guy the ball and letting him move on. “
So looking back, has moving around the positions been frustrating for him, or has he helped him have more playing time?
Milner has played in a variety of positions in Liverpool
“It’s a little bit of both. There have been times when different positions help other people and then someone comes into the position you were playing before, and they might have had some good games and left you out because you had a chance to play Okay, while you’ve been doing a job for the team, then you stay out of the team.
“Other times you may have been on the bench, but you play because there is a gap on the side that needs to be filled, either in the back-back or in a different role. There have been games in my career where I played five or six positions in a game I think that probably helped me be a better player and understand the game a little bit more, know what is needed and how I can help my teammates and things like that.
“I think it helped me improve as a player, but when you know you’re playing in the same position with the same players around you, I play within the game, you reach that pace and you will show your best form.”
“When you are on and off the team or change positions, it is not always easy. There are many times that if I am on the bench or if the team is named, I have to ask where I am ‘I am playing.
“I have seen a video in a meeting, and you look at the other team and then I discover that I am playing full-back while if you know that you are playing full-back you will be seeing the attacking winger and how you are going to play as full-back. If you think that you are going to play in the midfield, you will see the video in a different way and you will go out to train it.
“There are challenges, but that’s what adapting is about, I guess.”
Milner the manager?
Milner had worked with many senior managers during his career.
Milner has played for 26 coaches at six different clubs. So what have you learned from all those different coaches, and how would that affect the kind of manager you could be?
“Each manager is different and each has his own qualities and negatives. It is important to be the best coach or the best player you can be. It is the same as a player, take the best and worst pieces of each manager and try to replicate the good parts and try to learn from other people’s mistakes if you want.
“It is important to try to get a mix of all the managers you have played with and take the best snippets of them all. Most of them have very good snippets you can take and there are a couple that you probably won’t have touch on, but Other than that, I have been very lucky to play with some great managers and would be a great manager if you could become the one with the best parts of them all. “
Kompany vs Van Dijk
There have also been brilliant teammates, and two of those best players are Vincent Kompany and Virgil van Dijk. So how do the talented centrals compare?
“They are massive players. You always look at the backbone of a successful team and it starts right in the middle with the leaders behind and how important defense is.”
“Vinny, amazing player. The way he handled his affairs, he fought injuries, but the amount of injuries you saw playing with him that no one had ever known was never incredible.”
Vincent Kompany and Milner won two Premier League titles together at Manchester City
“He would put his head on the line. An incredible leader, a great captain with so many excellent qualities on that side, and rightly so, one of the best defenders to play in the Premier League.”
“Virgil is probably a little bit different from that. Maybe a little bit more of a Rolls Royce, if you want, and he doesn’t seem to make many tackles. He puts himself in the right place and takes the ball away.”
“Maybe he has a few more diagonals in his locker than Vinny did, although Vinny had that, too. And I guess Vinny had the biggest hit when he hit one in the top corner. So he could hit a ball! Well too “
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