James Milner made a record-equalling 653rd Premier League appearance in Brighton’s defeat to his former club Aston Villa on Wednesday night.
As Milner matches Gareth Barry at the top of the list, the Press Association looks at his record and how he compares.
Appearance leaders
Milner is one of four players to pass 600 Premier League appearances, with Barry setting the existing record of 653 across spells with Aston Villa, Manchester City, Everton and West Brom.
Ryan Giggs played 632 times for Manchester United and Frank Lampard racked up 609 games – 429 of them for Chelsea with spells too at West Ham and City.
Surprisingly there are no goalkeepers in the 600 club, with former Liverpool, Villa, West Ham, City and Portsmouth stopper David James fifth all-time on 572 appearances.
The rest of the top 10 consists of Gary Speed (535), Emile Heskey (514), Mark Schwarzer – the only player from outside Britain with 500-plus appearances, ending up on 514 – Jamie Carragher with 508 and Phil Neville 505.
Three other players have broken the 500 barrier – Rio Ferdinand and Steven Gerrard with 504 apiece and Sol Campbell 503.
Giggs, Carragher and Gerrard are the only three players to make 500-plus appearances for a single club, while Barry still holds Villa’s Premier League appearance record with 365.
Barry also remains a long way clear of the pack with 54,439 minutes played in the Premier League. Milner ranks 14th by that measure on 40,476 according to the league’s official website.
Milner’s career
Milner played 48 times for his boyhood club Leeds, where he became at the time the Premier League’s youngest goalscorer, aged 16 years and 356 days, and second-youngest player – he remains second on the former list behind James Vaughan (16 years, 271 days).
He made 94 appearances for Newcastle and 100 for Villa, 27 of them on loan in the 2005-06 season before joining permanently in 2008.
His longest and most successful spells came with five seasons at Manchester City, where he made 147 appearances and won two Premier League titles, and eight at Liverpool featuring 230 games and a third title.
He has played 34 times for Brighton since joining in the summer of 2023, with last season interrupted by injuries and limited to four appearances.
He has scored 56 goals – 19 for Liverpool, 13 for City, 12 for Villa, six for Newcastle, five for Leeds and one for Brighton – and added 90 assists to rank 10th on the all-time Premier League list.
