Former Norwich, Charlton, Leeds, Man City & England full back Danny Mills talks exclusively to 888Sport about his career highlights and how an injury to Gary Neville thrust him into the 2002 World Cup which ended with a quarter-final appearance against the mighty Brazil.
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Danny also talks about how his dedication and sacrifice enabled him to have the career he did and shares with us the best XI he played with.
Playing 45 times for Charlton, he shares his passion for the club and how staying in League One is so important. We also hear Danny’s view of the EFL Cup final and how he believes his former Club will retain the Premier League.
Danny Mills On The EFL Cup Final
DM: Chelsea were disappointing in extra time. You have senior players in the team, and I know Pochettino had some question about the substitutions which I'd go along with.
When you are saying you are taking your captain off because he is a little bit tired, you're taking Raheem Sterling off because he's a little bit tired.
Liverpool are bringing on teenagers with fresh legs. Okay, I get that they're enthusiastic, but experience should always win in those situations. It’s how you deal with the situation.
It almost seemed like Chelsea gave Liverpool the emphasis to go and attack. Chelsea went from being on the front foot, couldn't put the ball in the back of the net to suddenly going, oh, let's go a little bit defensive and let's just protect our own goal a little bit.
Looking at the winning goal I have to say why do managers not put a player on the back post? I've never ever understood it. I think it's the worst tactical decision on the planet.
I understand that they don't always want to put two players on the posts because obviously you take two players out of the game effectively. But we've all watched football for long enough.
How many times have we seen a corner come in and a header just drifts in at the far post, not a bullet header. If you put a man on that post, you make the goal two and a half, three yards smaller. Simple as that. You give your own goalkeeper a much better opportunity to make a save.
So overall I think Pochettino made one or two mistakes in that game. It was there for Chelsea to win.
They didn't take their opportunity. Fair play to Liverpool. They did a job. And Van Dijk obviously came up with a captain's moment, big game player delivering the knockout blow.
Who Wins The Premier League Title?
DM: Obviously, I played for Manchester City and have no sort of love for Arsenal or Liverpool. But I still think if you beat City then fair play to you.
Manchester City have the strength and depth, the squad, the mentality. They haven't been playing their best football, their goal tally will tell you that.
But I just think now this is where they really start to grind results out. My view is the next four games will decide the title. If Manchester City win the next four games, then they will win it.
Manchester City have Liverpool and Arsenal to play in March and If they win both of those, they win the league. Done and dusted.
Mentally it absolutely destroys the opposition because people talk about six pointers, three pointers. But if you beat the opposition and you go ahead of them, suddenly catch up at this stage of season is difficult.
Best Strikers Played With
Mark Viduka on his day was unplayable. Did not move, didn't run, but didn't need to, he just needed a partner.
Robbie Fowler was the best finisher that I've ever seen in terms of ability to score goals. When he came to Leeds he was injured, he had a bad hip. But obviously when he was at Liverpool in his prime was scoring for fun.
If you look at the Champions League run that we had, I played against Shevchenko and Bierhoff who were a great partnership at that time, possibly the best strike partnership in the world.
You had the Yorke and Cole partnership and Manchester United which was exceptional. At Newcastle, you had Alan Shearer who was an out and out finisher. You had Henry and Bergkamp at Arsenal who were a great pairing.
Danny Mills Career XI
Nigel Martin in goal. What a Goalkeeper he was. Then in defence you have Ashley Cole, Rio Ferdinand, John Terry. All of these were world class and won many trophies domestically and in Europe. I can then put myself in as right back.
Holding midfielder would be David Batty alongside Olivier Dacourt. They both were superb for Leeds United and always gave 100%.
Outright Winner - Manchester City
Looking at the flair players then Gaiska Mendieta would be in there with Bolo Zenden. Both were superb, so skilful. I would then have Harry Kewell and Mark Viduka up front. Both hugely talented and unplayable on their day.
Playing At The 2002 World Cup
It was very unexpected, and I wasn't even expecting to be in the squad. I thought I had an outside chance if I was going to be very lucky.
I had only started one game prior to the World cup squad being announced. With England playing some games at Elland Road this helped me and probably a reason I started a friendly game as Gary Neville never got injured.
It was a dream come true to make the squad for World Cup 2022, Gary Neville got injured and I had my chance.
I worked harder than most, was more dedicated with more discipline, made more sacrifices. That is why I got opportunities. I was good at what I did. I wasn't a great ball player. I was a decent defender, was able to stop the opposition.
I think on a personal level, the tournament was relative success for myself given I never really expected to be playing in the first place as I proved to myself that I could compete at the highest level.
The first knock out stage was great as we thrashed Denmark 3-0 and after the first 30 minutes of the game, we were 3-0 up and the game was dead and buried.
We're then looking at it going, oh, I'll tell you what, you know what? If we beat Brazil, no one can stop us. There's every chance we could go on and win this.
Of course we went one nil up, but you just have to look at their team and realistically you've got Roberto Carlos and Cafu, two of the world's best fullbacks at that time.
I'd argue that Ashley Cole was on par with Roberto Carlos. You are them up against Ronaldinho, Rivaldo and Ronaldo. Kaka couldn't even get in the know in that World Cup team. Gilberto Silva was their holding midfielder who went on to be an invincible at Arsenal.
That's how good they were. We came close, obviously. I think ultimately people got about tactics. but they were better than us and that's what it comes down too
If we'd have beaten them, I think there's a chance we'd have gone on and won it, because the confidence that would have given us.
And I think they were obviously the strongest team in the tournament. They had world class players all over the pitch and we gave them a good game. But, we did our best and I think ultimately we were beaten by a better team.
My Career Highlight
Playing for England tops everything and then playing in a World Cup quarter final, is the pinnacle of any career. It's about proving that you can do it. Walking out of the tunnel for your first game, you're looking across thinking, right, okay, don't let yourself down.
Don't let your family down. Don't let your teammates down. Go out there and perform like you know you can and show people that you deserve to be here, and you can hold your own. And that's what I tried to do.
People often talk about the League Cup with Middlesbrough. Obviously, I was fortunate enough to win the League Cup, but, for me, international football comes first. There's only 250 Englishmen played in the World Cup.
Not many over the course of time. It's quite an elitist group. What are they up to now? 1300 players played for England all time. It's not many over the last 125 years of English Football. So, a very niche group. That's quite a special group to be part of.
Charlton Athletic and Current Plight of the Club
It's always difficult when the team's struggling and I've played in teams that have struggled and the manager gets changed. Confidence with the players is very, very low. The ability hasn't changed.
The ability of the players has not changed from the beginning of the season to this point. They've not got considerably worse as players. Obviously, they've not got considerably better, but confidence will be low. Belief in what they're doing will be low.
The problem that Nathan Jones has is he's probably still a little bit damaged from his previous job and therefore his confidence might be a little bit low.
So often when you get the bounce effect that everybody talks about, it's because it's a new voice, it's somebody coming in that's energised, that doesn't have the baggage and the turmoil of relative failure previous to that, sometimes it's a number two that's never managed before.
So therefore, actually he's got a free hit and a free opportunity to impress his ideas and enthusiasm on the players.
When you're a manager coming into this situation and you haven't been great in your previous job or jobs, the players will give you probably ten days, two weeks as a bit of a grace period and then you've got to be on it.
Two draws against Bolton and Portsmouth shows that the players are fighting which is great to see.
They have a chance of surviving in League One and must now turn these draws into wins. Others below them have games in hand, so we will have to see how they get on.
From my point of view, Charlton is a fantastic club. I was down there on New Year's Day and Alan Curbishley was there as well and it’s a club very close to my heart. I hope they get out of it, but it's going to be tight.
*Credit for all of the photos in this article belongs to Alamy*
