James Milner

[loki679]

First person I saw when I moved into a house in St Peters Basin.  True story.

[STM]

I don't think I will ever see Milner as a great player.

 

Hes a cracking professional and a Jack of all trades but most of trophies he has picked up have come from an unreal city side, which had silly money thrown at them and Klopps Liverpool. In both situations hes been used as a utility player and never as a long term first choice.

 

I'm not saying he didnt contribute, he did, but in the same way that Darren Fletcher did for Man Utd. An honest player, a hard worker, a team player and someone you could trust to turn up on the biggest occasion but a great player? No.

[STM]

Souness was right, in that sense, but he should never had said it.  :lol:

 

It's an amazing sport where someone like N'Zogbia could have more raw talent but because he had a worse attitude and because he didnt work for it, Milner has a zillion more medals.

[Guest neesy111]

Imagine if we had just never appointed Graeme f***ing Souness. I remember the day he was appointed. I sent an email to Sky Sports News within a minute and they read it out on air pretty much straight away. How Shepherd thought that was a clever appointment I'll never know. He was useless at every club he managed, including his amazingly disastrous spell at Liverpool.

 

The underlying problem was that Shearer had become too powerful a figure within the club. I'm inclined to believe the account that five more promising candidates turned the job down, and Souness was the only one prepared to take the situation on.

 

I don't particularly blame Shearer for it. At a crucial point, Shepherd didn't back Sir Bob's judgement about the player, and it was downhill from that point.

 

I've never heard that before. Souness was Shepherd's man from the word go, was he not?

 

I remember the rumblings at the time that Shearer was the chosen one and Souness was brought in to fill time until Shearer retired and was ready to take over.

 

Allardyce said shearer was in the interview in 2004.

[LFEE]

Souness was right, in that sense, but he should never had said it.  :lol:

 

It's an amazing sport where someone like N'Zogbia could have more raw talent but because he had a worse attitude and because he didnt work for it, Milner has a zillion more medals.

 

It’s because it’s a team sport not an individual sport.

[TRon]

I was critical during his time here, mainly because he seemed to have everything. Good crosser, very decent striker of the ball, and he would run all day. Just never seemed to score the goals he should have, or even provide that many assists. In hindsight, that wasn't down to him, it was managers like Souness who had no idea how to make teams work. He had good individual players but just expected them to work it out on the pitch.

 

When Milner moved on, we saw what he was really capable of. Not a great player by any means, but a lot better than he was made to look here. Good spot by SBR as usual. He really knew how to spot young talent.

[kingxlnc]

Other than SBR spotting his talent, it was also Keegan who brought him inside to play centre mid - where he went on to have so much success with Villa and as he said in the video, his favourite position. That's despite only being known as a winger at that point. Shows him to be more than just a 'motivator' - he would have made Milner in to Rob Lee Mk II I reckon. 

 

I think the whole Schweinsteiger / Milner nonsense was way worse than the Nacho Gonzalez thing in terms of Keegan second time around.

[Deuce]

I don't think I will ever see Milner as a great player.

 

Hes a cracking professional and a Jack of all trades but most of trophies he has picked up have come from an unreal city side, which had silly money thrown at them and Klopps Liverpool. In both situations hes been used as a utility player and never as a long term first choice.

 

I'm not saying he didnt contribute, he did, but in the same way that Darren Fletcher did for Man Utd. An honest player, a hard worker, a team player and someone you could trust to turn up on the biggest occasion but a great player? No.

 

I think that attribute alone makes him a great player tbh. That’s a rare enough quality.

 

Fact that he’s not been a part-time player for City and Liverpool during their title-challenging years but a full-fledged starter speaks volumes too.

[Superior Acuña]

Imagine if we had just never appointed Graeme fucking Souness. I remember the day he was appointed. I sent an email to Sky Sports News within a minute and they read it out on air pretty much straight away. How Shepherd thought that was a clever appointment I'll never know. He was useless at every club he managed, including his amazingly disastrous spell at Liverpool.

 

Not saying he was good enough, but not sure that's quite true. He'd gotten Blackburn promoted, then sixth in the PL and won the League Cup.

[Dr Jinx]

He’s a far better player than we thought he was going to be, that’s for sure. He doesn’t owe this club anything so I’m fairly ok with anything that’s happened since.

 

And regarding the Robson/Souness/Shearer thing, there’s a degree of truth about that. Shearer wasn’t going to be used as much and he lobbied Shepherd to move him (Robson) upstairs and get someone in who would let him finish his career being picked as as first choice striker.

 

That first choice was Harry Redknapp who was either at Southampton or Portsmouth at the time, I believe that was the first of three approaches we made for him.

 

Talks had also taken place with David O’Leary as he’d gotten Villa into the top 10 but there was an issue about using Lee Bowyer who he’d fallen out with over the book he released.

 

So Shepherd changed his mind at the last minute and went for Souness without actually knowing how close he would have been to getting the sack if he’d just waited a week or two.

 

The rest is history. With hindsight, Redknapp was smart not to take that job. It was poison at the time. Too many egos in the dressing room who had won fuck all professionally. (apart from Shearer at Blackburn)

[Superior Acuña]

I thought of Milner as going to Man City towards the end of his career. He was 24 Really does feel he's been around so long.

[Skeletor]

I thought of Milner as going to Man City towards the end of his career. He was 24 Really does feel he's been around so long.

 

Been a first team player since he was 16.

[Super Duper Branko Strupar]

We didn't see the best out of Milner because we wanted him to be a rail down the wing, whip the ball in winger, which he's never been. He's never had pace. He played a few games at CM for us and I remember him looking really good there. But he was always destined to be shouted at by our fans because he wasnt beating players on the wing. As soon as he moved to Villa they saw, and that's been it since.

[TRon]

We didn't see the best out of Milner because we wanted him to be a rail down the wing, whip the ball in winger, which he's never been. He's never had pace. He played a few games at CM for us and I remember him looking really good there. But he was always destined to be shouted at by our fans because he wasnt beating players on the wing. As soon as he moved to Villa they saw, and that's been it since.

 

I would put the blame on Souness directly rather than the fans. He was too busy defending his over the hill star signings like Butt and Owen. For a hard man, he spent a lot of time kissing arses of big name stars, and looking for younger players to blame for his shit results.

[Guest]

Wonder if he’d come for a season? Sort of like when Vieira went to Man City at the end of his career.

[xLiaaamx]

I was too young to really realise much at the time, but I'd definitely feel like the Kluivert singing was an attempt to sign someone a little younger who's still a big enough name to justify dropping someone like Shearer.

[toon25]

He thrived when moved into the middle

[TRon]

I was too young to really realise much at the time, but I'd definitely feel like the Kluivert singing was an attempt to sign someone a little younger who's still a big enough name to justify dropping someone like Shearer.

 

I doubt Kluivert was bought to drop Shearer. Provide an alternative would probably be a better way of looking at it. Newcastle's problem was over-reliance on Shearer, his best days were probably when he could share the load with another striker like Ferdinand or big Dunc.

[wormy]

I was too young to really realise much at the time, but I'd definitely feel like the Kluivert singing was an attempt to sign someone a little younger who's still a big enough name to justify dropping someone like Shearer.

 

I doubt Kluivert was bought to drop Shearer. Provide an alternative would probably be a better way of looking at it. Newcastle's problem was over-reliance on Shearer, his best days were probably when he could share the load with another striker like Ferdinand or big Dunc.

 

Wasn't Sir Bobby ready to let Shearer go to Liverpool at one point around the time of Kluivert? Or am I misremembering that?

[TRon]

I was too young to really realise much at the time, but I'd definitely feel like the Kluivert singing was an attempt to sign someone a little younger who's still a big enough name to justify dropping someone like Shearer.

 

I doubt Kluivert was bought to drop Shearer. Provide an alternative would probably be a better way of looking at it. Newcastle's problem was over-reliance on Shearer, his best days were probably when he could share the load with another striker like Ferdinand or big Dunc.

 

Wasn't Sir Bobby ready to let Shearer go to Liverpool at one point around the time of Kluivert? Or am I misremembering that?

There were rumours to that effect, also that Bobby felt Shearer was trying to dictate team matters, no idea of the truth behind it. Shearer and Souness got on very well after Bobby left though.

[Raconteur]

I was too young to really realise much at the time, but I'd definitely feel like the Kluivert singing was an attempt to sign someone a little younger who's still a big enough name to justify dropping someone like Shearer.

 

I doubt Kluivert was bought to drop Shearer. Provide an alternative would probably be a better way of looking at it. Newcastle's problem was over-reliance on Shearer, his best days were probably when he could share the load with another striker like Ferdinand or big Dunc.

 

Wasn't Sir Bobby ready to let Shearer go to Liverpool at one point around the time of Kluivert? Or am I misremembering that?

There were rumours to that effect, also that Bobby felt Shearer was trying to dictate team matters, no idea of the truth behind it. Shearer and Souness got on very well after Bobby left though.

 

It seems pretty clear Bobby wanted to go one way and Shearer wanted to be the main man ad infinitum - and Shearer had Shepherd's ear, which meant Bobby got the arse and his mate Souness came in

[Thomson Mouse]

I was critical during his time here, mainly because he seemed to have everything. Good crosser, very decent striker of the ball, and he would run all day. Just never seemed to score the goals he should have, or even provide that many assists. In hindsight, that wasn't down to him, it was managers like Souness who had no idea how to make teams work. He had good individual players but just expected them to work it out on the pitch.

 

When Milner moved on, we saw what he was really capable of. Not a great player by any means, but a lot better than he was made to look here. Good spot by SBR as usual. He really knew how to spot young talent.

 

Yeah me too.

 

I seem to remember there being a lot of running around but not Buch end product from him

[buzz]

I was too young to really realise much at the time, but I'd definitely feel like the Kluivert singing was an attempt to sign someone a little younger who's still a big enough name to justify dropping someone like Shearer.

 

I doubt Kluivert was bought to drop Shearer. Provide an alternative would probably be a better way of looking at it. Newcastle's problem was over-reliance on Shearer, his best days were probably when he could share the load with another striker like Ferdinand or big Dunc.

 

Wasn't Sir Bobby ready to let Shearer go to Liverpool at one point around the time of Kluivert? Or am I misremembering that?

There were rumours to that effect, also that Bobby felt Shearer was trying to dictate team matters, no idea of the truth behind it. Shearer and Souness got on very well after Bobby left though.

 

It seems pretty clear Bobby wanted to go one way and Shearer wanted to be the main man ad infinitum - and Shearer had Shepherd's ear, which meant Bobby got the arse and his mate Souness came in

 

Although I always assumed Shepherd's ultimate plan was for Shearer to be the next manager after SBR and they were both set to retire in sync in 2005. SBR leaving prematurely obviously scuppered that.

 

Such a plan would've depended on the state of Shearer's coaching badges (can't remember if he had them at that point), and also the temptation of extending as he did under Souness in 2005 to beat the Milburn goal record.