Milner Gets 90 Minutes Whilst Johnson Gets None?

[ant london]

I'd agree with you in talent terms that he is not better than Adam Johnson

however, we have all seen that AJ's one real weakness is that he is not exactly a duracell bunny in stamina/endurance terms and, once we were 10 vs 11 that was absolutely the one quality we needed in abundance.

If it had been even stevens in number terms I agree that I would have loved to see Johnson. BUT i would have hooked Barry and played Milner centrally.

As you and others have said before, Milner is not a tricky winger.....so to compare him to SWP, Johnson, Silva even...is not comparing apples with apples IMO

[Niall Quinns Discopants]

I'd agree with you in talent terms that he is not better than Adam Johnson

however, we have all seen that AJ's one real weakness is that he is not exactly a duracell bunny in stamina/endurance terms and, once we were 10 vs 11 that was absolutely the one quality we needed in abundance.

If it had been even stevens in number terms I agree that I would have loved to see Johnson. BUT i would have hooked Barry and played Milner centrally.

As you and others have said before, Milner is not a tricky winger.....so to compare him to SWP, Johnson, Silva even...is not comparing apples with apples IMO

I wasn't talking so much about last night but his overall performance for us so far. I don't want to hammer him too much either. I thought when we signed him that eventually he'd turn up to be jack of all trades player for us rather than best XI player. Like good Sun Jihai, if you will!

[ant london]

I wasn't talking so much about last night but his overall performance for us so far. I don't want to hammer him too much either. I thought when we signed him that eventually he'd turn up to be jack of all trades player for us rather than best XI player. Like good Sun Jihai, if you will!

He's not been spectacular I grant you. But I've seen enough to think that he will certainly be a high quality Sun Jihai at the very least.

Obviously he doesn't need to get to know the PL but he does have to get used to playing with his teammates

I really do think he looks to "get" Silva and Tevez from what have seen but his acclimatisation is not being helped by the fact that Yaya and Barry both look intermittently well off the pace. Either in terms of fitness or sharpness or PL readiness or a combination of all of these factors.

My current mood is summed up quite nicely by Joe Hart on the OS "We're not clear second in the table any more, but we are still up there level on points - we're level on points, second in the Premier League, and people are devastated! What does that say about this club now?"

[Beeks]

Personally I thought Milner was one of the best players on the pitch yesterday...he ran his socks off...though I agree I was bemused that we didn't bring on AJ when we were chasing the game

[thegoatfeeder]

If we are going to persist with 4-3-3, I think Milner should play in the central midfield 3, on current form with Barry and De Jong since Yaya Toure needs a bit of a kick up the arse, and then Johnson, Tevez and Silva can all play up top, that is where you see the best of Milner in my eyes.

[Ted Hughes]

I've no problem with that. It was clear from the brief period when we were 11 v 11 that we had too much power for Arsenal & they were in for a torrid afternoon trying to stop us. We could have been 3 up in 4 mins. If they had somehow held out (not a hope in hell imo) we had Johnson Ade & Balotelli to win us the game.

The only attacking mistake imo was probably bringing on Balotelli rather than Johnson but it's just nitpicking by that stage & not worth bothering about.