James Milner - The Football Interview
Football Daily
BBC
4.3 • 4.6K Ratings
🗓️ 20 March 2026
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this week’s edition of the Football Interview, Kelly Somers speaks to Brighton midfielder James Milner. They discuss his journey from joining the Leeds academy to breaking the appearance record in the Premier League at the age of 40. He talks about the best managers he's played under as well as the highs and lows of his Premier League career which started way back in 2002.
0’30 - What would a young Milner say about the career he’s had? 1’00 - Breaking the appearance record. 2’13 - His first football memory and being scouted for Leeds 5’00 - First Premier League appearance and goal in 2002 6’14 - Best manager he’s played under and relationship with Klopp 8’56 - What game would he relive? 9’40 - Toughest moment of his career 11’18 - Did he think last year’s injury would end his career? 12’00 - How much has football changed? 14’29 - What do people get wrong about him? 16’50 - Retirement and going into management
5 Live / BBC Sounds commentaries: Sat 1200 Man City v Spurs in WSL on Sports Extra, Sat 1500 Fulham v Burnley, Sat 1730 Everton v Chelsea, Sun 1415 Spurs v Nottingham Forest, Sun 1415 Aston Villa v West Ham on Sports Extra, Sun 1630 League Cup Final - Arsenal v Man City.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | An early start here. It's time to kick off. |
| 0:10.0 | Your day. Morning! |
| 0:11.9 | What a line-up. |
| 0:13.3 | Oh, thanks very much. We do get some great guests on the show. |
| 0:16.1 | The crowd is loving this. |
| 0:18.3 | Thanks, guys. Thank you. Too kind. |
| 0:20.2 | From morning chaos to match day commentary. And everything in |
| 0:24.4 | between. BBC sounds packed with personality. The Football Interview on the Football Daily |
| 0:32.3 | podcast. I'm Kelly Summers and this season I'm interviewing some of the biggest names in football, |
| 0:38.3 | asking them the questions they don't normally get asked as I try to find out more about the person behind the player. |
| 0:44.3 | And this week's football interview is a slightly different one as we reflect on the incredible career of the Premier League's all-time record appearance holder, James Milner. |
| 0:53.3 | Well James, good to see you. I always start these interviews by going back to the very |
| 0:57.6 | beginning. What would a young James Milner have made of what you have achieved becoming the |
| 1:02.7 | Premier League all-time record appearance holder? |
| 1:04.6 | Yeah, I think it's hard to say, I suppose, when you're that age, you're just trying |
| 1:09.9 | to get in the first team at first and foremost, you know, getting in around there and staying there, and then that's the next thing. |
| 1:16.1 | And then it's always what's the next achievement and never rest on your laurel sort of thing, really. |
| 1:22.9 | So, yeah, I definitely wouldn't be thinking too far ahead, never mind 20 odd years ahead and thinking I'd still be playing yeah |
| 1:30.2 | has it all been quite surreal because there's been so much understandable hype around it you getting to the record when you were going to break it and the fact that you have has it been quite weird for me I've obviously been asked about it a lot. Sorry to add to that. No, no, no, obviously, yeah. Which is obviously a nice thing in terms of people acknowledging it's a big number. It's a lot of games, but I've just been concentrating on doing my job for Brian, really. And if it hit hit the number, then great. It wasn't something that I'm like I need to do this when everyone else asked |
| 2:02.3 | lots of questions about it and I think the narrative around it then is like that's the only reason |
| 2:09.1 | why I'm still playing sort of thing and for me like if you spoke to me or anyone knows I would just want to |
... |
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