Milner

[Biamp]

hmmmm

Slim has it bang on.

I'd rather Sweep though. Sweep tests defences. This guy just makes em work a little bit before they get the ball off him. As long as the defender is patient, they normally do.

I missed this earlier but this is bang on. Glad someone else dares to say it. At this stage Milner is playing because he is 'the new kid in town'. It has become fashionable to dis SWP for whatever reasons but he is and always was a quality player who can stretch defences with best of them.

Milner might turn out to be good player for us over the time if the way he played against Newcastle becomes the norm. At this stage he is more hype than production though. And that's a FACT.

Milner isn't a winger though, he'd be better for us with a run of games in the centre, although it's tough to get into that position at the moment.

I honestly don't think SWP would do any better. He's been almost terrible ever since he came back with the odd good game. I'll always have fond memories of his first spell here, but the reality is that he's only really good enough for a mid-table team at best now.

Yeah but he's been terrible because we're all expecting him to go on them amazing runs and score wonder goals like he used to.

At this stage I still think his 1 in 5 chance of beating his man is better than milners turn back around and go backwards approach. SWP will work bloody hard if asked to as well.

It's ideal to give SWP a run out, but I don't think Mancini really rates him anymore, he would do better than Milner; add to that he'll give us more width.

[brite blu sky]

Deserved MoM for Milner yesterday.

I can understand a lot of the misgivings about Milner.. especially with the price we paid for him, and so far we had seen little evidence of him performing to even the level we have seen with Villa. So hopefully the goal will of settled him down some and the performance in general given him some breathing space to just get on with it now. He always looked like he was just trying to hard to me and it fucled him up in terms of the basics making him look like he was struggling.. basically whether you like the guy or not we want him to do well for us. Mancini obviously likes him so he is going to get plenty of chances and if yesterday means he has turned a corner we may see some better performances and perhaps more importantly a level of basic performance which is no worse than yesterdays cup game.
He got another assist yesterday, and his early pass to Tevez in the box, that Nige then failed to score, was inch perfect. That is a key part of his game, setting up others and even though he has most assists we haven't seen enough of that so far.

[Bingo Lewis]

1st half, played CM and ran the show
2nd half, stuck on wing and offered little.

I'd say he was at his best in CM, as we found in the Europa game last month.

[brite blu sky]

1st half, played CM and ran the show
2nd half, stuck on wing and offered little.

I'd say he was at his best in CM, as we found in the Europa game last month.

agree with that, although i thought he looked a bit better on the wing than recently, if deJong had scored the goal would have been made by Miner's pass from the wing. Did you get any sense that he seemed a bit more relaxed after he got his goal? i thought he did a bit.

[Ted Hughes]

1st half, played CM and ran the show
2nd half, stuck on wing and offered little.

I'd say he was at his best in CM, as we found in the Europa game last month.

agree with that, although i thought he looked a bit better on the wing than recently, if deJong had scored the goal would have been made by Miner's pass from the wing. Did you get any sense that he seemed a bit more relaxed after he got his goal? i thought he did a bit.

Definitely. I don't think people take into account that players are often nervous at a new club & even his performance yesterday doesn't mean those nreves are gone for good but another 2-3 similar performances would make a big difference for the rest of the season. Villa fans will tell anyone that wants to know, that Milner is a centre midfield player & nowt else though.

[brite blu sky]

1st half, played CM and ran the show
2nd half, stuck on wing and offered little.

I'd say he was at his best in CM, as we found in the Europa game last month.

agree with that, although i thought he looked a bit better on the wing than recently, if deJong had scored the goal would have been made by Miner's pass from the wing. Did you get any sense that he seemed a bit more relaxed after he got his goal? i thought he did a bit.

Definitely. I don't think people take into account that players are often nervous at a new club & even his performance yesterday doesn't mean those nreves are gone for good but another 2-3 similar performances would make a big difference for the rest of the season. Villa fans will tell anyone that wants to know, that Milner is a centre midfield player & nowt else though.

He used to have run of the park though with Villa. I think it is a bit more complex than he is simply a central mid, yes he is best there or at least allowed to go where he wants, but i have seen Milner play and go automatically down the wing and put cross after cross in for Villa.. so maybe it is a case of he is not at his best when restricted to that role.

[Ted Hughes]

1st half, played CM and ran the show
2nd half, stuck on wing and offered little.

I'd say he was at his best in CM, as we found in the Europa game last month.

agree with that, although i thought he looked a bit better on the wing than recently, if deJong had scored the goal would have been made by Miner's pass from the wing. Did you get any sense that he seemed a bit more relaxed after he got his goal? i thought he did a bit.

Definitely. I don't think people take into account that players are often nervous at a new club & even his performance yesterday doesn't mean those nreves are gone for good but another 2-3 similar performances would make a big difference for the rest of the season. Villa fans will tell anyone that wants to know, that Milner is a centre midfield player & nowt else though.

He used to have run of the park though with Villa. I think it is a bit more complex than he is simply a central mid, yes he is best there or at least allowed to go where he wants, but i have seen Milner play and go automatically down the wing and put cross after cross in for Villa.. so maybe it is a case of he is not at his best when restricted to that role.

I think most mobile central midfielders get out wide occasionally, like Gerrard used to but I think Milner can do the job Barry does but with an extra dimension in the future, once he learns to read the game like Barry can.