Please, tell me what he is actually good at... as a footballer, what does he do very well that would justify your description as a very good footballer? I'm not being facetious or anything... I genuinely want to know what people who rate James Milner see in him, because I honestly do not see it.
James Milner is top 4 material.
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Please, tell me what he is actually good at... as a footballer, what does he do very well that would justify your description as a very good footballer? I'm not being facetious or anything... I genuinely want to know what people who rate James Milner see in him, because I honestly do not see it.
Barcelona beg to differ. Though I think this post sums up everything wrong with English football for the last 40 years. And are you really putting Toure in the same bracket as Barry and Milner?
I'm glad we paid £8m(and a scrub player) less for Valencia.....who works just as hard, but is a good footballer too. These kind of players aren't exactly hard to find.
feck me, we won tons with O'Shea, Fletcher, Butt, Phil Neville, and many others who aren't really "top 4 material" either, you need them no doubt, but you shouldn't be paying ridiculous amounts for them like City do.
feck me, we won tons with O'Shea, Fletcher, Butt, Phil Neville, and many others who aren't really "top 4 material" either, you need them no doubt, but you shouldn't be paying ridiculous amounts for them like City do.
There isn't two better options on the bench though.
Milner is there because we play 2 up top. Walcott is a very good player, but one who is best for counter attacking football and doesn't offer much defensively. Milner tracks back very well, and positionally he's top notch. He may not be the best footballer in the world, but he's important to England's style.
If you wanted to play Walcott instead of him, you'd have Walcott, Young, Welbeck and Rooney and two 31 year old midfielders (one who is the worst player in an England shirt currently, and one who is known for being positionally suspect) Milner offers a lot of reliability down the right side, and to be honest if the keeper hadn't have made a great save from Cole's volley, would have had an assist this tournament.
O'Shea, Fletcher and Neville weren't top four material?
fecking hell
Well I said it as "top four material" for a reason. Theres not really a defined way of saying what is and isn't top 4 material.....but if Milner was a City youth player, no one would be saying this crap about him. And if any of those 4 cost anywhere between the amounts him and Barry did, they'd get the same shit from opposition fans too(not that they already didn't anyway.)
The only thing Milner offers is making England SLIGHTLY better than they would be playing with 10 men.
Young should be dropped before Milner anyway, he's been horrendous for the most part. But so has Milner really so what can you do? Young might come good, and Oxlade keeps finding openings in his cameos.
The Ox has done nothing to show me he should be in the squad, never mind getting game time. He's still so "raw" as everyone keeps pointing out, but yesterday when he found himself in a good position and failed to release Walcott, he showed his lack of experience massively.
And Young has done nothing in general.....the experience excuse is a copout really. Experienced players do the same shit all the time. Oxlade could of scored twice against Ukraine, should of really if they weren't like his warm up touches....and then yeah again on the break with Walcott. It's not really inexperience, it's about about just being thrown into the game and it being your first touch.
Plenty of players have crapped on this "you need experience" crap in the past decade. Rooney, Ronaldo, Podolski etc etc etc
He wasn't great in the first game for sure, but none of the attacking players were, because they were told to clearly go for a draw.
Plenty of players have crapped on this "you need experience" crap in the past decade. Rooney, Ronaldo, Podolski etc etc etc
He wasn't great in the first game for sure, but none of the attacking players were, because they were told to clearly go for a draw.
But he's not ready. He's played about 4 premier league games. Ashley Young isn't the greatest player in the world, but he has played well for England generally overall in the last few years.
Wingers won't have great games every time. However Young and Milner are probably the best players England have in terms of tracking back, helping the full back, and occasionally getting a goal.
You say Young and Milner did nothing yesterday, but Rooney's best chance was a set up from Young, and Milner crossed the ball which led to Cole's great chance.
tbf, I wouldn't actually change the team at all now. No need, it's working to some degree, but Young would be the one I'd drop. Oxlade has the defensive hustle that he has too.
What some people here don't seem to understand is that England are so weak in certain areas that you need some Milners in the team.
Imagine the idea of Walcott and Johnson on the right side. Johnson who always makes 2-3 horrible errors in positioning each game and Walcott whose strengths certainly aren't in defense. Add to that - John Terry as the man closest to Johnson, John Terry who now seriously lacks pace and can't cover it with his determination anymore.
England need a James Milner on the right side to cover for Johnson/Terry's weaknesses defensively. Is he a brilliant player ? No..but he is extremely hard-working and he did a fine job helping Johnson with Konoplyanka yesterday. Would that have worked with Walcott ? Nah...
Imagine the idea of Walcott and Johnson on the right side. Johnson who always makes 2-3 horrible errors in positioning each game and Walcott whose strengths certainly aren't in defense. Add to that - John Terry as the man closest to Johnson, John Terry who now seriously lacks pace and can't cover it with his determination anymore.
England need a James Milner on the right side to cover for Johnson/Terry's weaknesses defensively. Is he a brilliant player ? No..but he is extremely hard-working and he did a fine job helping Johnson with Konoplyanka yesterday. Would that have worked with Walcott ? Nah...
How do you know he's not ready? Who cares how much you've played......he "wasn't ready" to start vs Milan according to many, he stepped up for that. Phil Jones "wasn't ready" to face Drogba and Berbatov in his first couple of games.....still did tremendous jobs on both. Just an easy copout excuse to play the safe option for me. I always stand by it, and it's probably why England will mostly fail, because it's what we've always gone for, the safe bet.
Hell we "weren't ready" to win with kids in the 90's.......hey guess what, we did.
Hell we "weren't ready" to win with kids in the 90's.......hey guess what, we did.
But Phil Jones isn't ready either, as we saw when he played CB this season. He still has a lot to learn.
You can't just say "if he's good enough, he should start", because at this moment he's not good enough.
And the reason England fail numerous times are massive. It's not because we "always go for the safe bet". If anything we should go for that more. Carrick certainly seems to me to be a safe bet to start regularly for England, and yet he's not in the squad.
He does? How'd you figure that. Every time I've watched him play the opposition have had a field day attacking down his flank. In the United game where so many gooners threw a strop about Wenger subbing him off his fullback was getting no help at all and we were getting all sorts of joy on the right. Wenger's decision was spot on IMO.
Anyway, Young's not had a great tournament but did well last night. Some great crosses into the box. Comfortably a better performance than Chamberlain has managed in any England appearance so far.
I thought Milner was ok too fwiw. Walcott's a good option off the bench but Italy's left back (can't remember his name) was is a real threat. Was excellent against Ireland. Johnson will need a lot of help from whoever plays in front of him. I'd stick with the same wingers against Italy.
I actually didn't say that. At the start of the tournament I would of said start Young......but he's not shown he's for up for this at the moment, unfortunately due to him being one of Englands best players coming into it on form. Oxlade has created/had just as many chances as him in far less time.
This is useless though.
Oh you mean the sub that instantly cost Arsenal the game because ironically Arshavin didn't track back as well and Wenger went on to admit it as a mistake? I'll allow it. #PogueLogic
Wenger admitted it was a mistake?
And it also didn't cost them the game, it was just a very good goal. The stick Wenger got over that decision was ridiculous.
It doesn't have to be either or... you can also have hard-working players who can also contribute something when they have the ball at their feet. fecking Stewart Downing would have provided a similar job yesterday... all whilst probably using the ball a lot better then James Milner. (yes, I'm talking about the Stewart Downing).
In the 70 minutes he was on the pitch yesterday, James Milner attempted 13 passes. 13... and he was only succesful with 9 of them. Frankly, he's a passenger in this team... but because he runs around a lot, he's a worthy addition?? I say bollocks... you can't tell me that Downing, or Chamberlain or or even Phill Jones, or any other "hard-working" player wouldn't have done just as "good" job as Milner has done in this tournament so far, all whilst contributing more in those rare moments when they actually have the ball at their feet.
Young has been poor so far yes, but at least we all know what he's capable of when he's on form... and yesterday we got a glimpse of that with an excellent cross for Rooney. He also works equally as hard as Milner, but at least when he has the ball, their is a threat that he might actually do something useful with it. With Milner, there is no such threat... someone mentioned the fact that he nearly got an assist for Cole yesterday, but that only came thanks to the keeper initially making a hash out of Milners cross which again was just thrown in to the box and not actually aimed at anyone in particular.
http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11670/7448943/Wenger-admits-tactical-error
It was a nice goal, and yeah he shouldn't have got shit for it, mistakes happens, move on. But still it changed their game, hell Arsenal players probably went down a bit considering some of the reactions.
did not happen.
Yeah and there's a parallel universe where Chamberlain stayed on and never failed to track any runs from our attackers #ZenLogic
(God I hate the way fecking twitter hash tags are being used outside Twitter)
In that link he justifies taking off Chamberlain.
He is most probably pointing at choice of player he used to substitute Chamberlain.
Probably assisted two goals instead for an Arsenal victory. Thankfully he came off agreed.
A lack of experience is a learning curve, Milner missed an open freaking net against France. There have been plenty of times when players like Rooney or Young have failed to release an open player, I'd rather The Ox getting game time over Milner because then at least he's getting the experience.
Apparently I did something several months ago.
Can we just say he played right back while Johnson was the right winger?
For a right back he was okay.
For a right back he was okay.
I was desperately trying to think of what Milner reminded me of, and it came to me.
He's like one of those firefighters who deliberately start fires just so they can be the hero and save the burning children inside. That's why he loses the ball every time he has it - just so he can go and win the ball back with an unnecessarily excessive slide-tackle, and subsequently be praised for his defensive grit and stability.
He's like one of those firefighters who deliberately start fires just so they can be the hero and save the burning children inside. That's why he loses the ball every time he has it - just so he can go and win the ball back with an unnecessarily excessive slide-tackle, and subsequently be praised for his defensive grit and stability.
A quote summing up my thoughts: "Milner is a man stubbornly doing lengths of a swimming pool while a water polo match goes on all around him"
He was shite. In the first half I lost count of how many times Balzaretti got the ball in acres of space.
Today he was the child inside.
Worst player of the tourney for me. Dogshit
True.Hate scapegoating but he was so bad I felt sorry for him.
Funny how Mancini and Hodgson don't have any time for Johnson. Whenever he played for City he beat his man and scored and assisted very consistently.
Aaron feckin Lennon would have been a better option too.
Funny how Mancini and Hodgson don't have any time for Johnson. Whenever he played for City he beat his man and scored and assisted very consistently.
Aaron feckin Lennon would have been a better option too.
It reminded me of Terry and Parker too. Excellent analogy.
Had a poor tournament along with Rooney & Young
Should have been dropped after the Sweden game for me as Walcott can offer England more on the right.
Should have been dropped after the Sweden game for me as Walcott can offer England more on the right.
A self-defeatest footballer in the extreme. His "hard-defensive work" is only ever born out of his complete lack of attacking threat... by which his presence on the field simply allows the opposition to play with (pretty-much) two left-wingers.