Boring Boring Milner, Best in the World

James Milner. Boring, boring James Milner. The Twitter account is actually pretty good (I realise as I write it that this is the seminal phrase of the 21st century). I said to Gareth McAuley, I bet you’re really mad that you were sent off instead of Dawson. He said WHAT DO YOU THINK! I said I think you are. The cruel reality is that, while the last two sentences were added by the auteur to add colour and panache, the first is very possibly a verbatim quote from the subject’s mouth.

Here’s a number to consider: 16. That is Milner’s alleged position among Britain’s wealthiest sportsmen – although what that Sunday Times list mainly shows, at least for sportsmen, is that there ain’t no party like an oil-wealth party. I wonder if – assuming he’s aware of it, and that’s not guaranteed – Milner was pleased to be in among the crowd of Kompany, Hazard and Ozil, as opposed to out on his own wealthy limb. Perhaps he said to his captain, Just glad I’m not 13th. Why’s that James? 13 is unlucky, isn’t it? Give or take what you value Stephen Ireland at, his career has accumulated around £36.5million in transfer fees. Oh how different the life of a James Milner of yesteryear would have looked, compared to now.

Stephen Ireland is actually a useful point of comparison, because his picture popped up when I put ‘James Milner’s car’ into Google to try to prove that he was at least buzzing away from Eastlands in a Ferrari. He’s a footballer, for god’s sake. But no. As far as you can tell from the single available shot, James Milner drives a comfortable, silver… it’s quite possibly a Ford, but to be honest it’s impossible to tell. A spacious Ford, perhaps. Plenty for me. Runs really well. With a cellophaned multi-pack of 4-litre water-bottles whose prevalence at the training-ground you just know he felt inclined to take advantage of – after double checking it was alright – nestled on the passenger-seat. That’s right: James Milner has bottled water riding shotgun.

Meanwhile, Stephen Ireland’s cars have their own photo-folder on Google called ‘Superman’. Black and orange Bentleys. A white Audi with an ice-blue grille. When he retires, he can say to his grandkids, ‘who cares about some old silver cup? Come out and see the cars again.’ While boring, boring Milner can pick up his tot so that they can graze their little fingers on the engraving of their grandfather’s achievements. One each of English football’s most prestigious trophies and an extra Premier League. Just for fun.

Photo by PA Images

And yet, indisputably, Ireland is the more innately gifted of the two. He has flair and unruly electricity. Milner doesn’t. That’s not to say he doesn’t have talent, but you’d need to be a proper Premier League devotee to know the times it’s burst out of him in unexpected ways. I’d bet a small sum that the only nutmegs he’s ever encountered as a professional footballer have been done to him. We’re not here to prat about, lads. But what else is Ireland amongst the flair? And what is Milner not? Distracted. Ireland is distracted by the life, by his receding hair, by the ridiculousness of his hair-implant, by the white baby Bentley with red wheels he bought for his wife, by Twitter, by his official website. Milner is not distracted. In this single category, he is the best in the world.

In searching for James and his car, I was struck by a picture of him in the front seat, taken I guess by a fan a few years ago. He looks directly into the camera. There is nothing intelligent about the comport of his gaze, and it doesn’t give a shit. It’s calm, it knows what it knows, and it’s not going anywhere. Football, you feel sure he’d tell you if you happened to ask, and not if you didn’t, is a simple game.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but the contours of Milner’s face could only be described as simian. Gareth Bale is the king of this line, Milner a mere foot-soldier. Both were crack long-distance runners in their youth. Bale would have won, obviously; Milner would have come third. And he would have come third next week, third the week after, and then on that day when it was absolutely pissing it down and the traffic to get to the race was horrendous he’d have been there and nicked it. Then back to third. The point is, he’s down with his engine. That’s what simian contours imply. And more importantly, he’s calm and consistent with his engine. He makes it work for him, in a way that eludes Mario Balotelli, or Steven Ireland, or Michael Johnson.

The world has fortunately moved on from the opinion it used to hold, having now seen with proper regularity the passes he’s capable of pinging around the Etihad as he relaxed into a proper run in the team. He isn’t just a functionary. The goal he scored against Bayern at the Allianz, hips-atwist to guide a fast cross low first-time into the far corner, didn’t come from a functionary’s feet. There is something of the David Beckham about his technique, a no-frills version of the celebrity laser-guided curls.

But not enough of it. Not enough righteous will to impose himself. He’d never roll over to the elite teams that City have come up against, but he’s never pushed them around either, had them dragging nervously out of position to try to keep track of him. This is the difficulty of James Milner: every time a manager watches a Toure or a Nasri playing a lackadaisical, detrimental nothing of a game I bet he thinks, Milner wouldn’t have done that. But to bring him off the bench to replace them is, whatever else, making your team less scary. And elite teams can’t afford to be made less scary – particularly not one that is being driven gloriously batshit by its inability, Sergio Aguero aside, to scare the big boys.

So what now? Tell you this much: I bet he’s not mustard-keen to join any team that reunites him with Mario Balotelli. Actually scrap that, I bet he’s not that fussed. Mario’s Mario, I’m me. Sometimes I wonder if elite managers would like to create a position in the squad specifically for Milner; that is, in training, just the whole time, to show what a commitment to fulfilling instructions to the letter and trying to make that letter an A looks like. Best in the world at being James Milner, of that there’s no doubt.

A brief coda to it all, a little positive reinforcement of the dynamics of this planet, that old the harder I work the luckier I get trope. Milner was lucky that after all those seasons playing relentlessly in the middle of the Premier League, his best campaign came before the summer when City signed Balotelli, and probably fancied matching that with someone a little more dependable. You have to be good too though. Don’t forget that.