James Milner Article

[Clubber]

I rate Milner. Don't think he is a world beater, but he is similar to barry, in that he is the glue that holds the structure of the team together.

Lets not forget he has only been at city for a season, and has played in about 5 different positions. His best form at Villa came when he had a settled position and a good run of games.


Really like the lad and he is a great pro. All teams need a player like this.

 

[deedee]

Much thoughI like Milner, I suspect that at the very top level, he will just not quite be what Mancini is looking for.

However, he is a better long term prospect than Barry and he will fit into that position. I assume that RM will always play a holding mid, then three with two mobile forwards. He needs to find a place in that middle three.

But, he has the talent to play anywhere across midfield and we should be looking at him being the successor to Barry.

 

[Boff]

For me, Barry is more suited to our system than Milner.

I think the opposite, Barry seems to be great at passing sidewise, his game would suit the serie A, whereas Milner seems to have more get up and go about him, but maybe that's one of his shortcomings...

 

[Blue-man chu]

Sad fact is that players like Barry & Milner tend to be underappreciated by most & staggeringly ridiculed by some. Reminds me of when Makalele left the successful Real Madrid side of galacticos & how most Madrid fans couldn't understand why their form suddenly dived.

It's always the lead violinists who catch the eye, but it's the roadsweepers that put them in the spotlight. Good honest English professionals, we need both Barry his heir apparent , Milner.

 

[peoffrey]

For me, Barry is more suited to our system than Milner.

It's interesting then that Barry wasn't signed by the present Manager and Milner was. I like Milner, personally. He's a model professional and a versatile player who can do a shift almost anywhere on the pitch. He's not flash or spectacular but he doesn't need to be. He's quietly effective and I think he'll be a reliable performer in 11/12. I think he'll play more, too.

 

[lionheart]

As the article was obviously written by a bitter Aston Villa fan, I found it rather tedious and predictable. Nothing there guys, move on.

 

[mike channon´s windmill]

Has to start scoring as he did at Villa. There he seemed to make all the right choices and his finishing was clinical. At City he´s been too anxious to impress so now after a full season he needs to relax and take the pressure off himself. If he does this we´ll have a player

 

[decmancity]

I really rate him as a player.

It is just a shame he cost 24m. For that money he has have the expectations from some of us and mainly other fans saying he should be scoring 20+ goals every year from midfield and assisting 15+.

Had he been sub 15m then he would have had no where near the same pressure and expectation and he would just get on with his job without having stupid articles like this written about him.

He is not a Manchester City player according to that article?
I think he is very much a City player, he works hard, has ability, doesn't complain when he is not playing and is happy to play anywhere on the pitch. These same things are why we love De Jong, Zaba, Kompany etc

Stupid article from a bitter Villa fan it seems.

 

[Citizen Green]

I'd love to see Milner played in Barry's role next season, helping Nige support the defence and getting forward at times to help out the attack whilst keeping things steady, he's got the ability to do it and at the same time chip in with about 10 goals a season. Milner isn't a wide man, he doesn't have the flair or the ability to be a world-class winger, in fact I'd say the only reason he is played there is his energy and to help out his full-back more than going forward.

In short, give him a box to box role full time (Barry with more license) and he'll be a top player for City, play him out wide and he's wasted.

 

[TTS]

Has to start scoring as he did at Villa. There he seemed to make all the right choices and his finishing was clinical. At City he´s been too anxious to impress so now after a full season he needs to relax and take the pressure off himself. If he does this we´ll have a player

I hadn't thought about it this way before, but I agree with you. He does seem to be trying too hard, which affects his decision-making. It's similar to the problem that Dzeko was having in his first few months: he's trying to do everything all at once to impress the manager, thinking about it too much, instead of playing instinctively. We might see a much more effective James Milner this season.

That said, I don't think he'll ever look quite right in the team. Mancini's strategy in central midfield seems to be to combine strong, positionally aware defensive midfielders (Barry, De Jong), and technically gifted attacking midfielders (Silva, Yaya, and hence the pursuit for Nasri). Milner doesn't really fall into either category. His positional awareness isn't good enough for a defensive midfielder; he lacks the ingenuity and quick feet to be a truly effective attacking midfielder in our system.

I've read somewhere that in our unusual transfer policy system, Milner was pushed through mainly by Marwood (in contrast, Kolarov was pushed through mainly by Mancini, so this isn't necessarily a defence of Mancini or a criticism of Marwood!). This makes sense to me, and I wouldn't be surprised if there's some truth to it. Compared to the other central midfield targets we've been linked with (Gago, Nasri, De Rossi?), Milner just feels like an odd fit for the direction our style of play seems to be heading.

I'm not saying that Milner won't be useful this season. He's a good player. I thought that he played well in the middle last season, but only when we were playing 4-4-2 rather than 4-2-3-1, a point which many other posters seemed to miss. He ran the show in a couple of Europa League games when we played 4-4-2, but I felt he was underwhelming whenever he was played as part of the '2' or the '3' in Mancini's usual formation.

For that reason, I can't help but agree with the article, to some extent: he'll be a very good asset to deploy in Cup games where Mancini feels as though he can shift to a 4-4-2, sure; unfortunately for Milner, I find it hard to believe that the presence of a more technically gifted central midfielder (whether as part of the '2' or the '3') in his place wouldn't significantly lift the team's performance levels.