“He looks beautiful.”
This is not the opening gambit we anticipated, which just goes to show that, where Lewis Miley is concerned, it is still judicious to expect the unexpected.
It is a verdict delivered from the heart of Newcastle United’s training ground as the 18-year-old midfielder, the breakout star who nobody saw coming, edges closer to the first team. Second time around, everybody is excited all over again.
“Some boy,” was how a member of Newcastle’s coaching staff referred to Miley when he caught the eye during a pre-season tour to the United States last year, before becoming a mainstay of coach Eddie Howe’s side — a rare beneficiary of the team’s awful spate of injuries. By the end of the season, after setting all sorts of records, he had grasped his opportunity, making 17 appearances in the Premier League. Inside the club, there was genuine relief he had been tied down to a long-term contract.
Nobody is calling Miley a boy any more. After an absence of seven months, first with the back injury he suffered while on international duty with England Under-20s and then due to a broken metatarsal (the long bones in the middle of your foot), he has both reached the age of legal adulthood and bulked up. If he still has the face of a kid, he now has the physique of a man, which is where the “beautiful” comment comes in.
Miley has grown up and grown outwards, working with typical diligence during his lay-off. Taking no chances on his maturing frame, Newcastle’s medical team ran skeletal tests, ensuring Miley’s bones were developing in the way they should and since then he has beefed up his body and general fitness. Any puppy fat has gone.
“Before, he was lanky and tall, but there was a softness there. Now he looks beautiful; beautiful as an athlete,” says a senior figure inside Newcastle’s football operation, speaking anonymously in order to protect relationships. Just as they were a year ago, the club’s coaching staff routinely talk about how good Miley is, an opinion which is reinforced by his return to the training pitch. “It just reminds you of his intelligence and maturity,” our source says.
Newcastle have missed him, which gives another indication of his breakneck impact. Midfield is an area of (theoretical) depth for Howe, who is able to call upon Bruno Guimaraes, Joelinton — both Brazil internationals — Sandro Tonali, Sean Longstaff and Joe Willock, but the balance is not quite there, with the Chelsea game on Sunday a case in point. Miley, who has been an unused substitute for the past two league fixtures, offers something different from those others.
This is particularly important after Newcastle’s failure to strengthen their first XI over consecutive transfer windows and with no guarantees over what might happen during the next one in January. With the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules (PSR) still biting, Howe needs the players he already has to lift each other.
The head coach continues to counsel caution with Miley, though.
“We’ve got to be really careful with Lewis and manage him right,” Howe says. “He’s been on the bench ahead of where we thought he would be. The injuries he’s had reflect on us maybe overusing him last year and he’s still young, but he’s an outstanding player and he’s shown that coming back into training. You expect some rustiness technically or some physical development still to go, but he’s come back looking like a changed athlete, more solid and filled out. He’s in a really good place.”
What does Miley bring to the party? According to the same senior figure mentioned above, it’s that combination of ability and smarts; if you’re lucky, you might be able to rely on one of those attributes, but he has both. Wherever he plays, he has “a formidable brain with very good technical delivery, which means he’s able to make good decision after good decision after good decision. That’s pretty unusual”.
So unusual, in fact, that similarities with one of Manchester City’s most pivotal performers are also pointed out – a player who has just won the Ballon d’Or – albeit with an important caveat: “This is absolutely not meant to be a direct comparison and it wouldn’t be fair, but there is a touch of Rodri in that link between intelligence and technique. Rodri isn’t blessed with incredible physical capacity, but he doesn’t need it because he’s got those two key qualities. Lewis has that, too. He’s got a long way to go, but he can be whatever he wants.”
On reflection, beautiful sounds about right.
Miley’s team-mates are in awe of what he has already achieved.
“It’s pretty scary how good he is,” says Longstaff. Jamaal Lascelles predicts he will “be a beast” once he fully matures. One senior player likens it to “playing alongside someone who has 500 career appearances“. Guimaraes said last season: ”Sometimes I can’t believe he is 17 years old. I was s**t when I was 17!”
Miley has sprinted past career staging posts. He became the youngest player to score for Newcastle in the Premier League (and the eighth-youngest in the competition’s history), the third-youngest English player to start in the Champions League, Newcastle’s youngest-ever representative in European competition and their youngest Premier League assist provider.
“He was dealing with things at the age of just 17 that most adults struggle to deal with, but he manages to cope with the pressure and the attention,” says Martin Nugent, who runs MN Elite Performance, a specialist strength and conditioning firm Miley has worked with for five years. “He’s got a mindset which, in my view, means he could potentially be world class.”
In his 27 first-team appearances, Miley has played against Manchester City (three times), Paris Saint-Germain and AC Milan.
Miley battles with Erling Haaland during last season’s FA Cup tie against Manchester City (Stu Forster/Getty Images)
“The quality of opposition he has faced is absolutely nuts,” says Dan Coombe, the founder of Reevo Coaching, who has worked on technical skills with Miley since the midfielder was 14. “He hasn’t just been doing it against Tranmere in a cup, he’s played elite sides. He played against (Kylian) Mbappe in the Champions League. That was a surreal moment for us because literally the week before he was down smashing balls around at a school with us, then the next week he’s at the Parc des Princes.
“Out of all the players I’ve seen, ‘Lewey’ would be the one where there was never any doubt he would play in the Premier League and the Champions League. I just didn’t expect him to be doing it so young.”
Just how young was constantly emphasised; throughout last season, a safeguarding officer made checks on Miley and the environment around the club.
But Miley has always been a player beyond his years.
Throughout much of his time in Newcastle’s academy, he played at least one age group above; he made his debut for the under-18s aged 15 and his career with the under-21s spanned just 14 matches. Howe opted against sending Miley on loan in the summer of 2023, partly because he felt the midfielder was needed on Tyneside and was ready to be involved with the first-team squad, but also because he was actually considered “too young” for a temporary move away.
It is Miley’s “footballing IQ” which sets him apart, according to the coaching staff, while his ability to “absorb information like a sponge” means he learns and improves with every training session.
Miley’s first Premier League start arrived last November, though it would have come sooner if he had not suffered from glandular fever.
As a youngster, Miley played in a more advanced midfield role and out wide — he admired Georginio Wijnaldum, the former Newcastle and Liverpool player — and his former coaches believe his attacking talent has yet to be fully realised at senior level. “When he was younger, he was scoring 30 or 40 goals a season for the academy,” says Coombe. “Technically, I’m not sure there is anything he can’t do.”
His first start came as a No 6 — the position some within the England setup expect Miley to settle into longer-term — although the majority of his Newcastle appearances so far have come as a No 8.
Tonali’s 10-month suspension from last October for gambling offences actually aided Miley’s development, offering him greater game time sooner, but the Italian also worked closely with his young team-mate on the training field. He is now a fully ensconced member of the senior midfield contingent.
“There’s a reason why we all speak so highly of him,” says Longstaff. “He’s ridiculously good. It’s the way he receives the ball, the way he passes it, he’s a good size. He’s such a humble kid. He’s got all the talent in the world. We’re just lucky to have him.”
“Honestly, all four brothers could be professional footballers.”
Coombe’s appraisal may prove prophetic. Lewis is the second-oldest of four Mileys who are all on the books of professional clubs in the north-east of England.
The family are from Stanley, County Durham, which is 10 miles from Newcastle and 17 from Sunderland. While his hometown has split loyalties, it is majority black-and-white stripes, and three of the four siblings are at Newcastle. Jamie, the eldest at 20, is a hard-working midfielder who featured regularly during pre-season and is on loan at Newport County in League Two, while Mason, a box-to-box midfielder, made his under-18 debut in August, aged 15. The youngest, Layton, is a defensive midfielder in the academy at Sunderland of the Championship.
“Lewis is the talk of the school,” says Mark Temple, who coached the football team at Tanfield Lea Community Primary School in Stanley. “We’ve had a long line of Mileys and they’ve basically all blessed our football team!
“Every year there’ll be a good footballer in the team, but Lewis wouldn’t just wow our parents and teachers. All around County Durham, parents and teachers would come up to me and say, ‘Who is that lad? He’s something special’. And he was.”
In Tanfield Lea’s team, who played seven-a-side, Miley was a forward, essentially given a free role to dominate.
“He scored from the halfway line once,” Temple says. “He just looked up, saw the keeper off his line and wellied it. When you’re 10 years old, sticking it in the top corner from that distance is some going, but he was capable of that. In some games, I’d bring him off because he was just annihilating teams. One time, I put him in goal because, whenever he got the ball, no matter where he was on the pitch, he’d just destroy teams.”
His unique talent also shone after he moved up to secondary school. Miley’s team won the district, county and regional finals in futsal and represented the north of England in a competition at St George’s Park, the training base for the various English national teams. Across a decade of coaching, Coombe says he “never saw a player of that ability”. “Oh my God,” he says, “it was like he could go and do anything he wanted on the pitch.”
“From an early age, you could tell he was something special,” says Grant Parker, another teacher at Tanfield Lea. “There were times when he was probably playing at about 80 per cent, yet he was clearly still the best player on the pitch. When he really turned it on, full tilt, people couldn’t get near him. He won games by himself. Technically, he was a cut above.”
Alex Jeffrey, another teacher there, says Miley was “One of the nicest students you could have had, was never in trouble, had a 99 per cent attendance record”, and always completed his work, even when given time off to go to Newcastle’s academy.
When Miley was training with the Newcastle first team in 2022-23, and made his senior debut off the bench at Stamford Bridge in the season finale that May, he was also studying for his GCSEs. “He passed them all,” says Jeffrey. “Fantastic results, actually.”
Brothers Jamie and Lewis are “best friends”, and the Mileys overall are a very close-knit group. When Lewis scored his first Premier League goal, against Fulham in December, he celebrated by watching the BBC’s flagship highlights show Match of the Day in his living room with his siblings, and parents Mick and Maxine.
“It’s probably unique for a little town like this to have four brothers at football academies, all of whom have the potential to make it,” Parker says. “They’re quite the family.”
Those who have worked with Miley are adamant he is nowhere close to where he will eventually be in terms of speed, strength and agility.
“He still hasn’t finished physically developing,” says Nugent, whose company have provided personal training for Miley throughout his teens. “He’s had an acceleration in his growth over the past couple of years, but his body is still developing. I see people say, ‘He’s not sprinting’, but he doesn’t need to. If you watch him, he’s clever, he only uses speed when he has to; but, most of the time, he ghosts into pockets of space and is in the right place.
“Already, though, from a test data perspective, his reactive strength in his jump test was one of the best in the Newcastle first team, (when) aged 17. Basically, that measures your ability to hit the ground and get off the ground fast. From an athletic development perspective, he’s still got bags to come.”
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Miley’s commitment has set him apart.
“No matter the weather, no matter what was going on in his life, he never missed a session,” Coombe says. “He came to me once and said, ‘It’s my prom tonight, but I’d rather do a session to improve’. All his friends were going to the prom and he was running around on the pitch with Jamie. That kind of dedication takes you to the next level.”
Miley could feature in the Carabao Cup against Chelsea on Wednesday as he continues his return to full fitness after injury (Serena Taylor/Newcastle United via Getty Images)
Even now, during international breaks and off-seasons, Miley texts Coombe and asks if he can go down to the 3G pitch at Greenland Community Primary School in Stanley for a session.
“Last November, he arrived at 3pm,” Coombe says, recalling a session focused on shooting. “That’s obviously the worst time for a school coming out (at the end of the day). But he came inside and signed a few autographs, kids were wearing ‘Miley, No 67’ shirts’. Some of the kids were crying with excitement.
“As we started the session, all the parents were standing at the gate, shouting his name. It was surreal. I was like, ‘How do you cope with this?’. He said, ‘I just block it all out’. He takes it all in his stride and he’s so composed. It’s unbelievable.”
Excitingly, this is just the start.
“We can’t get too ahead of ourselves with him as fans and coaches, we’ve just got to allow him to play, express himself and learn,” says Nugent. “But, if that’s done right, not even the sky’s the limit. Who knows how high he can go?”
A few months ago, Alan Shearer was taking questions at Newcastle’s academy, standing in front of players and staff, a rapt audience of wide eyes (and a few open mouths).
The leading goalscorer in the club’s history was asked about the best advice he was ever given and referenced Jack Hixon, the scout who discovered him. There will always be better players than you, the young Shearer was told, so make sure you work harder. Wring every ounce from your talent.
Shearer was there at the invitation of Steve Harper, a close friend, former team-mate and now Newcastle’s academy manager, and had other duties besides the Q&A.
There are two new meeting rooms at the back of the canteen, one of which is named after Elliot Anderson, who has since left for fellow Premier League club Nottingham Forest, much to Howe’s distress and entirely due to PSR constraints. The other, to the left as you look at it, has a window which points towards the first-team training complex a few green fields away, a nice, deliberate touch.
Shearer cut a ribbon, posed for a few photographs and declared the “Lewis Miley Room” officially open.
The big idea is that the names of these rooms, which currently have photographs of Anderson and Miley on the walls, will change and rotate every time an academy graduate starts a game for Newcastle in the Premier League. “It’s aspirational, isn’t it?” Harper says. “You would hope that more than one or two of the lads were thinking, ‘I want my name on there’.”
Miley was sitting at a table in front of Harper and Shearer, at that point not quite a graduate of the academy, still coming in twice a week to complete his education. “You didn’t notice him,” Harper says. “Yes, he was playing in the Premier League and doing very well, but he’s not flash. He’s so unassuming. He just sat and did his work. It’s testament to who he is.”
Miley and Shearer exchanged a few words. “I said to him, ‘How have you found it?’. And he just replied, ‘Yeah, it’s been alright’,” Shearer says with a smile. “You get the impression he could have been playing with his mates. The talent is obviously there. He hasn’t looked out of place. Quite the opposite, he looked at ease. Everybody raves about him and rightly so.”
“The manager (Howe) deserves huge credit,” Harper says. “Lewis has been with the first team for quite a while now and to create an environment where a 16-year-old, as he was at the time, is not overawed by the experience has been key. He settled in quickly.
“He has a lot of ability and a really calm demeanour, but he’s going to have ups and downs and people have got to give him time. He’ll have dips, but he’s had a really good start. We all hope he goes on and has a really long and successful career.”
You have to remind yourself that Miley has still only begun 19 senior games in all competitions.
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“Lewis has had a taste of it,” Shearer says. “His job now is to use that taste to push himself, to think, ‘How f***ing amazing was that? Next time, I’m staying there (in the first-team line-up)’. He’s made his mark. His next challenge is to become a regular, a fixture.”
And if Miley embraces that challenge (there is no earthly reason to think otherwise), if he works harder and wrings every ounce from his talent, in the same way Shearer did, Newcastle have some boy, some man, some beautiful player on their hands.
(Top photo: Serena Taylor/Newcastle United via Getty Images)
