“It’s surprising for any player to play at 39. To play at Championship level is even more surprising. But does it really shock me that he’s doing it? No, it doesn’t.”
Phil Jagielka’s Derby County debut means he has now played in 23 successive seasons in the top two divisions of English football and, for Alan Irvine, the defender’s remarkable longevity can be largely attributed to the motivated mindset he encountered first-hand during their time together at Everton.
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“He has great athleticism and is comfortable on the ball but if I had to pick one thing out it would be his mentality,” Irvine, who was David Moyes’s Everton assistant when Jagielka joined them in summer 2007 following Sheffield United’s relegation to the Championship after a single year back in the top flight, tells The Athletic.
“That’s where so many players fail – the psychological part of being footballers. Can you deal with setbacks? Can you cope with success? Are you brave enough on the ball? Are you willing to make sacrifices? He’d be a nine or 10 out of 10.”
The centre-back’s professionalism and personality were certainly qualities uppermost in Wayne Rooney’s mind when he decided to offer a contract to his former England team-mate at a time when Derby’s dispute with the EFL continues to cast a shadow over Pride Park.
A solid return of six points from their opening five league matches — Derby are unbeaten in the last three since Jagielka’s introduction to the starting XI, keeping two clean sheets – has, temporarily at least, lifted some of the gloom.
An uneventful transfer deadline day was, however, a sobering reminder of the scale of the task facing Rooney, who has been restricted to signing free agents on short-term deals – and even that is only possible after a softening of their transfer embargo.
As the nights begin to draw in, that all-too-familiar gruelling Championship schedule now looms and Rooney finds himself working with a threadbare squad — not to mention the threat of a potential points deduction still hanging over the club.
It will be a season for brave hearts and strong minds — and, in that department, they do not come much better than Jagielka, according to Irvine.
“When he first arrived (at Everton), it wasn’t all plain sailing,” the Scot continues. “We took the lads out to Italy to Coverciano (the Italian national team’s training centre near Florence) as part of our pre-season.
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“One of the first sessions was keeping possession in a boxed area on the pitch, and he was up against Mikel Arteta. I think he came out of it with twisted blood! To be honest, I think he got a bit of a shock at the level.
“The big thing, for me, was those early days. Whereas others in that situation might have crumbled, he rose to the challenge.
“At first he couldn’t get in the team, but he worked very hard. He put in extra work. I remember us doing extra bits together on his passing and he had the character to be successful. He became the captain and a regular at centre-back.
“It’s the strongest part of his game: desire, mentality, determination. He’s had setbacks — he was released by Everton’s academy and had a more difficult route to the top than some — but he’s always come back from them. That will all aid him with helping others through and be a huge plus for Derby as he’s been a leader of people for many years.”
For Jagielka’s former Everton team-mate Leon Osman, the moment that encapsulated that quality above all others came in an FA Cup semi-final penalty shootout against Manchester United in April 2009.
“The moment he stepped up to take the fifth penalty at Wembley was huge,” Osman tells The Athletic. “Everton hadn’t been to a cup final for 14 years. There was a lot of pressure, so for him to have taken that on his shoulders and put away the winning penalty with real assurance really spoke volumes.
“You need players you can rely on and he will always leave it all out there.”
Each time Jagielka appears for Derby, he will set a new record as their oldest ever outfield player (Ashley Cole held the previous outfield record at 38 during his brief spell at the club in 2019, with goalkeepers Peter Shilton and Kevin Poole the only older players to have put on a Derby shirt at 41 and 42 respectively).
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But with the limited number of deals that Rooney could do this summer, each one really needed to count and Jagielka, who was capped 40 times by England and played at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, is viewed as far more than just an old head in the dressing room.
While it’s still early days, it has been an encouraging start — Jagielka’s 87.3 passing accuracy percentage is in the top 10 for Championship defenders who have played a minimum of 180 minutes — with the veteran looking an assured presence.
“What he’s always had is pace,” his former Sheffield United team-mate Michael Brown tells The Athletic. “It helps — even when you’re not at your sharpest.
“What you have to remember is he missed the opening two games of the season because he hadn’t yet signed — and yet he has just slotted in and hit the ground running.”
Jagielka’s athleticism has aided his efforts to prolong his career, and even among a pretty stellar group at Goodison Park his fitness levels stood out. “He has always been a natural athlete,” Osman adds. “When we came back for the beginning of pre-season at Everton he’d be leading the way in the tests. He never seemed to have to fight for his fitness — he was just naturally fit.”
But there is another attribute that stands out, according to Osman, who had a successful loan spell with Derby in 2004.
“His pace and mentality are underrated — he’s deceptively quick,” the midfielder-turned-pundit says. “But it’s how he reads the game for me. His intelligence and knowledge of defending are incredible.
“It’s very rare that you see him have to make last-ditch challenges. You don’t notice his pace as he doesn’t have to use it that often and he also organises people around him.”
On the field, Jagielka impressed as a constant talker during a behind-closed-doors game against Fulham in early July when on trial. Off it, manager Rooney believes he will help maintain calm around the place.
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His arrival has proven popular with team-mates. For all his credentials, Jagielka cuts a relaxed figure and isn’t one to take himself too seriously. He was, after all, schooled at Sheffield United where, as Brown puts it, it was “sink or swim” when it came to joining in with any dressing-room banter and the social side of the game.
“He knows what he wants and that’s not going to change,” says Brown. “Sometimes he likes to be left alone to get on with it. He will stay out of the way when he wants to and at times he will step in when he thinks it’s needed.
“It’s a good fit for Wayne. They have enough problems with issues like the takeover and signings, so characters like Phil will be a big help to him.”
Jagielka has talked to his former central defensive partner at Everton, Sylvain Distin, who himself played Premier League football at the age of 38 with Bournemouth in the 2015-16 season. The Frenchman encouraged him to play on for as long as he could because he’d miss it once it’s gone.
There is, however, a recognition that there will eventually come a natural time to call it a day and he will listen to and respect the advice of those around him to identify when that is.
That time, though, isn’t yet.
What lies in wait in the coming months could be one of Jagielka’s biggest ever challenges but one thing is for certain — it isn’t one he’ll be shying away from.
(Photo: Tony Marshall/Getty Images)