'LeBron James of Football': Insane James Milner Stat Shared by the Premier League

James Milner’s wild Premier League statistic has taken the footballing world by surprise. One of the remaining old guards of English football, Milner’s longevity in the sport often goes unnoticed. The footballer has been around for decades playing for several English teams including Liverpool, Manchester City, Newcastle United, Aston Villa, Leeds United, Brighton & Hove Albion and Swindon Town. While playing for these clubs, Milner has faced the best in top flight of English football with ease. In a post on its official account on X, formerly Twitter, Premier League wrote, “4776 players have made at least one Premier League appearance. James Milner has played against 2277 of them.”

A similar stat was shared in another sport which mentioned that Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James has competed against 35 per cent of players to play in the NBA. It was later also uploaded by the official account of LA Lakers on X. Premier League acknowledged the similarity in stats with a comment on their post.

One fan called Milner the “LeBron James of football”.

Another said, “Ronaldo this Zlatan that…James Milner is Immortal!!”

One fan understood how ridiculous this stat was and said, “This is insane stat”.

“Has been a wonderful player. True team player. A coach’s dream”, wrote one more.

James Milner recently joined the company of Ryan Giggs as the player with the second-most Premier League appearances at 632. Milner made his league debut with Leeds United back in 2002 as a substitute against West Ham. He was only 16 years old at the time and went on to become the second-youngest player ever to play in the Premier League at the time. He later became the youngest goalscorer in Premier League history after scoring in a 2-1 victory over Sunderland on Boxing Day. The midfielder later went on to play for Newcastle United from 2004 to 2008, Aston Villa from 2008 to 2010, Manchester City from 2010 to 2015 and Liverpool from 2015 to 2023.

In his long career, James Milner has made a total of 874 appearances across all competitions. The veteran midfielder has scored a total of 85 goals while providing 138 assists. He is just 20 shy of equalling the record for most caps in the Premier League. It is currently held by former Aston Villa player Gareth Barry with 652 appearances. Brighton only have 18 games left this season. This means that the former Liverpool midfielder would have to wait until their next Premier League campaign to finally break the record.