James Milner continued his dominance in pre-season as he won the Liverpool annual lactate test for the seventh successive season on Monday.
The 36-year-old was up against some of the Reds' fittest youngsters but still managed to come out on top, as per The Sun. The Reds put their players returning for pre-season through the gruelling test each year, which measures players' lactic acid levels as they run over an increasing distance. Those with the highest levels are knocked out as the test continues.
Despite going into his 21st season in professional football, Milner was the last man standing yet again, and has won the test in every year he has been at the club since his move in 2015. Joe Gomez was the last player to keep up with Milner but he was not able to keep up with the former Manchester City and Aston Villa man.
Milner was clapped over the line by his onlooking teammates and boss Jurgen Klopp, who could only laugh and say "wow" as the player continued to break records. The majority of Liverpool's internationals are yet to return to training with the likes of Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Djik still enjoying their summer break.
Having signed a new one-year deal to keep him at the Reds until the end of the season, Milner is still competing with the best and has drawn comparisons with Cristiano Ronaldo over how fit he keeps himself. And he continues to be in a league of his own on the day which is notoriously tough and dreaded by players returning for a new season.
Andy Robertson is amongst those who has revealed he is not a fan of the pre-season test - and ended up throwing up on the pitch at his first attempt of the "terrible" task.
Speaking previously on the Peter Crouch Podcast, the Liverpool defender said: "The day I signed we got the tour of the stadium and stuff and that is when it really hits home. But I remember my first day, there was only six or seven of us because it was pre-season, so only a few of us in and Danny Ings was just coming back from long-term injury.
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"So he stayed behind and we had to do the lactate test that the Germans love, it's basically running to your maximum. I remember running alongside Danny Ings and I was just sick everywhere! Actually physically sick. [With the test] they set up poles around the pitch and you have to make each pole on the whistle but then it gets faster and faster.
"My medical took two days so I didn't really eat, so I put it down to that and I was tired. Ingsy was talking to me on the way round and I could just feel it, I knew something wasn't right. I tried to hold it in my mouth and I just had to let it go. It was terrible. Day one!
"Luckily the gaffer (Klopp) wasn't there and I thought I'd got away with it and he returned three days later and introduced himself, blah blah blah, and then he called me Mr Sick Boy or something like that. I was gutted!"
