There are reports that Aston Villa boss Martin O’Neill is still keen on Newcastle United right winger James Milner.
James Milner – one of Newcastle’s best players this season
Milner spent a season at Villa Park on loan for the 2005-2006 season and played 33 times for Villa and scored 3 goals. Aston Villa of course were very close to securing the Leeds born native but when Newcastle failed to sign Mark Viduka, James was recalled from Birmingham around 6pm on the last day of the summer transfer season – 31st August – whoops.
Not a good way to treat the then 19 year old youngster, but James took it all in his stride. He is very mature for his age, and only wants to play football. James had an excellent season playing for Glenn Roeder in 2006-2007, and played 53 times for Newcastle and scored 4 goals.
The Daily Mirror are reporting that Martin O’Neill is willing to pay Newcastle £8M for the talented winger, to add some balance to the Villa midfield.
Not sure what the most forceful and polite way to say this is – but absolutely no chance!   Nice try.
Comments welcome.
46 comments so far
ScottyT
Mar 14, 2008 at 1:32 AM
Comment #1exactly ed lol if there is one player we dont want to be getting rid of its james milner.
so much potential, ability, heart, passion, energy and of course hes still so young .. gutted hes not fit for brummy 🙁 bit of work on his crossing and he’d be a great great player.
CS
Mar 14, 2008 at 2:28 AM
Comment #2I actually think it is a good deal for newcastle!
This lad is full of heart, but lack of pace and skill.
His crossing is horrible. More of a cross and hope rather then aim and cross!!!
8M is a good deal considering nufc bought him for 5 M. He should go. Our wingplay this season
is S**** except for ocassional inspired N’Zobia.
8M can be used to entice more talent wingers.
obamagic
Mar 14, 2008 at 2:49 AM
Comment #3OMG… milner must stay, he is a star in the making… huge heart, A+++++ effort every time on the field… Stay with the toon!!!
ende
Mar 14, 2008 at 3:11 AM
Comment #4If he can’t get his crosses right and stay on the ball better, I might be willing to take a look at that offer.
phoonCK
Mar 14, 2008 at 3:59 AM
Comment #5My Team for Monday:
Harper
Beye Edgar Faye Enrique
LuaLua Butt N’Zogbia Duff
Martins Owen
Bench: Forster, Diatta, Smith, Barton, Viduka
I know for some reasons, Smith will be included in the team, much to my detest because he just hasn’t earned the right to wear the black and white stripes. No goals as a striker, no assists as a midfielder, no dribbles and crosses as a makeshift winger and no stopping in goals leakage as a defensive midfielder. No doubt he’s a fighter, but thats just about him, isn’t it?
I think the team i’ve listed has a nice blend of youth and experience. And if it doesn’t work out for the youngsters, Edgar and LuaLua, we always have cover on the bench.
Still looking for that 1st win to kick-start King Kev’s 2nd reign.
Keep the Faith
Howay the Lads
Gun "Indonesian Geordie"
Mar 14, 2008 at 4:19 AM
Comment #6if milner is off, then my belief finally comes true. Newcastle is doing a new business, young talent reseller.
AVFC Singapore
Mar 14, 2008 at 6:58 AM
Comment #7Why would he want to play Championship football next season?
UTD111
Mar 14, 2008 at 7:27 AM
Comment #8The only way the Vile will get Milner is if United are relegated.
AdamCF
Mar 14, 2008 at 7:36 AM
Comment #9I suspect the relegation issue is why other teams are circling for our ‘talent’.
Nick Dryden
Mar 14, 2008 at 7:45 AM
Comment #10Ed with respect 8M for a guy who can’t score and whose final ball is appalling, we should bite their hands off. For Milner read Smith, lots of effort, very limited quality.
ELFER
Mar 14, 2008 at 7:52 AM
Comment #11well, I think I do not have to comment this nonsense…another interesting thing I found (fcfans.com):
Carrick no 1 target for summer!
Well, if we manage to stay up this would be a fantastic signing (if he would like to join us). But this site is not really realiable I guess…
Doctapaul
Mar 14, 2008 at 7:54 AM
Comment #12I’m up for selling our whole midfield, lock stock and non-smoking barrels.
Zog no longer has the confidence or passion and so it’s probably best he’s on his way.
Milner – makes a few chances, looks good against 2nd tier teams, may well progress to be a very good player. all in all I’d take 8 mill….. because I think we can do better for the money.
Ste
Mar 14, 2008 at 8:10 AM
Comment #13Selling Milner means buy a new Milner and as we need to buy more that half a team I don’t see this being good for the club! We need to build around the quality player we have and we all know Milner’s top of that pile! “We love ya Jimmy”
AVMark
Mar 14, 2008 at 8:12 AM
Comment #14As a Villa fan I admired his committment and I know he’s popular with the fans here but personally I don’t think he’s quick enough. He’s not the type of player who really frightens teams.
Blerred
Mar 14, 2008 at 8:22 AM
Comment #15who are we going to get for £8m to replace him?
bentley? i think not, not for that price
quaresma? see above
arshavin? possibly
the point is, in todays market £8m is nothing, especially for an english player at that age. darren bent cost double that, carrick cost more than double that. i think if villa bid £8m for jimmy we should offer them £6m for agbonlahor and £7m for ashley young, then see what their reaction is. £8m is laughable
ELFER
Mar 14, 2008 at 8:26 AM
Comment #16the point is that both, MILNER and ZOGGY are jungsters and they should accept that! If we manage to bring in for example McGeady both are not anymore first choice!
DUFF and MC GEADY will be first choice on each side as wingers with ZOGGY and MILNER we have fantastic promising jungsters as backup. That’s the way it should be! Selling any of them would not make any sence in our situation…why open another construction place if not needed??
mike
Mar 14, 2008 at 8:28 AM
Comment #17lets be honest, why would he want to be at newcastle in a relegation battle? or if the worst happens and you get relegated i think young james would walk to villa.
your not a big club, you all have delusions of grandure, keegan is the laughing stock of football, as is your owner along with the wise contingent.
play for oneill or play for keegan who is clearly years out of touch with the modern game?
your all as confused as your top brass and it amazes me that no one outside newcastle can see it.
Hadji
Mar 14, 2008 at 8:31 AM
Comment #18If they offer 10 mill they can have him.Troisi will take Milner’s place.
Ted
Mar 14, 2008 at 8:36 AM
Comment #19I’d love to have Milner back at Villa. Under O’Neill he should blossom into a fantastic player. I think he’d come as well – we’re a club firmly on the up and should challenge for Champions League next season. You guys are going to have another couple of years of transition before you can even consider challenging for top 6 – We’ve just been through our transition and are arguably still in it, but next year we’ll be a force as we have a great core to our squad and a big transfer budget to add to that (plus yet more cracking youths coming through). If Keegan gets it right I can see you pushing on in a couple of years because you’ve got a good base of a team, good support, rich chairman, etc., but the problem will be attracting the better players when you’re not in a European competition, and even more so when you’re in the bottom 8 teams every year as you have been recently. At least we’re currently in the top 6, so look at least a little bit appealing to players (for the first time in years!).
Good luck in the relegation battle – can’t see you being dragged anywhere near it with the quality you’ve got.
Doctapaul
Mar 14, 2008 at 8:36 AM
Comment #20As much as I like Milner I don’t see him as a top quality player. he may be the best we have and he is still not good enough.
eg I would swap Milner and Zog together for Bentley.
Hadji
Mar 14, 2008 at 8:41 AM
Comment #21Doctapaul…How bout swaping them 2 for Lennon cause Huande Ramos wants to get rid of him in the summer.
ronaldeano
Mar 14, 2008 at 8:46 AM
Comment #22Milner is the BEST player we have got. He will be playing for Newcastle for a VERY long time, this is all paper twaddle, AGAIN, to wind us all up because of the relegation threat.
Milner is going nowhere
End of.
Obafan
Mar 14, 2008 at 9:01 AM
Comment #23Sell him immediatly if they are willing to pay £8m. He can’t kick 5 descent crosses in 1 game; he constantly dribbles himself; he has no football intelligence. The most positive about him is his spirit, but that is not enough to be a good RW.
Doctapaul
Mar 14, 2008 at 9:01 AM
Comment #24hi Hadji,
I’d like Lennon to join Newcastle because he is fast and he is better than Milner. I would prefer Bentley because of his range of abilities – passing, crossing and scoring from distance.
So i’d swap Zog for Lennon but not both.
You may well be right ronaldeano – in which case we are all smoking out of our ar$es. BUT where there is smoke there is fire?
Leo
Mar 14, 2008 at 9:02 AM
Comment #25firstly. to sell milner would be a massive mistake, he is a great player, and as soon as he has some good players to play alongside he will make a large jump from the plateau from which he is currently in. he is amazing jimmys amazing, get him back in our team.
if lennon is available in the summer i am sure keegan will take a long hard look at him because he is another great player for the future.
Doctapaul
Mar 14, 2008 at 9:09 AM
Comment #26Sorry, Milner is not a great player. His distribution has been average. His crossing is mostly poor. He scores good goals BUT how often?
The best we have? yes,
Good ? – at times,
Potentially very good ?- maybe.
Great? Where’s the evidence?
Just because he’s the best we have it doesn’t make him great. I don’t even put Bentley in the “great” class – yet!
chappa
Mar 14, 2008 at 9:11 AM
Comment #27selling milner would just put the icening on the cake for this terrible season! he has easily been our best player this season and from my point of view by quite a distance.
keep milner..!!
Hadji
Mar 14, 2008 at 9:20 AM
Comment #28Leo you’re absolutely right mate,if we wanna be big again we have to think big.
All these top 4 teams have adequate replacement for all their players.
Ex:Ashley Cole gets injured they have Bridge
Xabi Alonso doesn’t play they have Mascherano
Cristiano Ronaldo-Nani
Carrick-Anderson,Hargreaves,Scholes
If we wanna become big we have to keep our best players which we have at the moment and buy better one in order to have competition.
We have to have at least 2 class players playing on the same position.
At the moment we don’t have that.
Bobby Ollox
Mar 14, 2008 at 9:22 AM
Comment #29To everyone under 40 – welcome to the real world of Newcastle United –
Good players making their name and then moving on to a bigger club – Beardsley, Waddle, Gascoigne, Ginola, Shearer ( oh hang on – not him).
For a few golden years, we had more money than any one else and the tables were turned – but this is the way its gonna be for a while
Englands Michael Owen is the last big name we will attract – look what happened to him – and if we get relegated , dont bother looking for the word loyalty in the football dictionary – just get a revolving door fitted to the changing room.
but we wont get relegated……
Doctapaul
Mar 14, 2008 at 9:28 AM
Comment #30A big yellow taxi is waiting for a vast number of players this summer. It’s already in the parking lot at St James’.
Tez131
Mar 14, 2008 at 9:34 AM
Comment #31There is no way we should even consider selling Milner for 2 reasons:
1. Even though he is not the finished article yet (needs to be more consistant with crossing etc) he is still young and full of potential. If we can finally put together a solid team of staff under keegan then this can be worked on. Or even make him an attacking midfielder.
2. We only have Milner in the 1st team that is a right winger!! If we sold him we would need to look for 2 new right wingers (depending on how quickly we promote Lua Lua).
We need to build on our young talent, get rid of the older, not good enough players. Keep the young players with potential and buy some experenced quality players to help them progress.
Eric
Mar 14, 2008 at 9:35 AM
Comment #32Somebody once said we are not a selling team. Don’t get me wrong – Butt, Smith, Viduka, Carr, can go for nothing. There are better wingers than Milner (who may be in our reserves), but it smacks really of another media attempt to disrupt and destabilise the team even further. They have it in for the “Geordie Nation” and if we were anybody else we could take them to the race relations board. There seems to be a definite campaign in some papers against us and NUFC! Leave Milner alone. Have Smith instead!
Hammy
Mar 14, 2008 at 9:37 AM
Comment #33There’s a story running on Sky Sports news that if KK does not get a result in the next two games he’s gonna be shunted upstairs………..
any truth in this boys?
Ed Harrison
Mar 14, 2008 at 9:38 AM
Comment #34Mike – there is an awful amount of frustration at Newcastle now. Your’re right we can hardly be a big club in the Chamionship and since Bobby Robson left we’ve done nothing.
When you say big club for Newcastle 50,000 home gates – surely the fans deserve better – and we are currently the 14th richest club in the world.
But cannot disagree that we’re not wich or big in term sof winning trophies – but hope springs eternal in the City of Newcastle. 😀
Villa 4-1 Geordies
Mar 14, 2008 at 9:42 AM
Comment #35We will gladly take your best player and make him a superstar.
Viduka doesn’t even get into your team!! and he’s surely got more talent in his big toe than Smith has altogether.
big pea ov the weab
Mar 14, 2008 at 10:10 AM
Comment #36@ MARTIN ONEIL
KEEP UR PIKEY HANDS OFF HIM U TWAT
Bobby Ollox
Mar 14, 2008 at 11:01 AM
Comment #37LOL @BPOTW
spot on mate
GP
Mar 14, 2008 at 11:14 AM
Comment #38lol@Villa having O’Neil as manager. Don’t you brummy inbreds remember those hilarious IRA bombs? And guess who comes from a Republican family in Ulster? Go on, I know you thick twats can do it. The clue is at the top of this paragraph.
Faustino
Mar 14, 2008 at 11:35 AM
Comment #39If we stay up or go down it’s quite apparent that he isn’t getting any better imo. The quality of his final devliery is shocking. Some of you guys really need to stop mistaking effort for talent. I’ve watched games this year where he’s run for 90 mins and acheived the square root of f**k all.
Put it this way, a drop to the chmapionship should mean investing and developing the obvious quality youth that are coming through and tbh he becomes surplous at that level imo.
However, to stay in the premiership he should become nothing more than a squad player and if someone wnat to pay 8m for him bite there bl**dy hands off!
A quick thanks to some of the Villa fans who have given some good contributions to this blog but some others who seem to be from the other side of the world please do one!
Villa roolz
Mar 14, 2008 at 1:30 PM
Comment #40lol@GP, you’re a twat.