Contrary to my last blog post where I expect Milner to go the Mirror for the second day running are speculation that Milner will stay as Man city refuse to match our price. This will mean Milner will still be at VP but refuses to sign a new contract straight away. The lack of Man City’s money James Nursery (Blues fan) says we have no cash to buy anyone.
UPDATED – 12:30 22/07
Sky Sports and others reporting that MON has said Milner wants to go.
Of course Milner has not handed in a transfer request that will cost him loads of cash and that says it all about a player I thought had integrity and class, he has NONE.
Transfer request please Milner, forgo some money so we can lower the price and get rid of you, I am totally disappointed in your actions.
In another story the Mirror claim we have missed out on possible target Hugo Rodallega to Stoke.
Aston Villa News 24/7
Let’s not have another one of Barry’s last season! We’ll get £8m with one year left on his contract. Sign up or sell him for £22m. End of….
Agreed
Sell Milner or make him sign a new contract. If we don’t get CL, he’ll be gone by next summer for a lot cheaper. No matter how hard O’Neill tries, Milner will never respect Villa enough unless we get CL.
should we sell milner, lower than our price and lower than what City paid for Lescott, what signal does that give out to the next time a team comes hunting for us
“or make him sign a new contract.”
And how do you propose the club do that?
Knuckleduster? Baseball bat? Shotgun to the head?
The only way we could “make” him sign a new contract is to pay him more than he’s been offered.
And that isn’t going to happen, given our wage structure.
If NRC goes in this window, I’ll bet he walks with a payoff from the Villa.
It’s all part of the utter financial madness that is football.
Last summer, Man City’s profile wasn’t as high as it is now. This means that they don’t have to spend quite as much as they did on transfer fees and wages. Players are more willing to join Man City, and as such the price clubs like ours can demand for our players without making them feel like we are being unreasonable is lower. This is reason enough to explain why we might not get for Milner what Everton got for Lescott, although another good reason would be that Man City think they paid too much for Lescott and aren’t willing to make the same mistake again.
Man City are in the driving seat here. They can offer wages and career prospects that we can’t. Milner knows this, and that’s why he wants to leave. Man City might want Milner, but I’m sure they could manage without him and sign someone else, which is a much better option than being held to ransom (from their perspective) by us.
I have sympathy with the idea that we should show that we won’t be bullied, but the problem is that we can’t afford to make such a principled stand. Milner won’t sign a new contract (unless it is in his interests, and includes an escape clause at a reasonable fee – perhaps £20m – as well as higher wages), either now or next summer (because we won’t be in the Champions League then either). And we cannot afford the prospect of selling him next summer for much less – £15m, being very optimistic – than we can get now. Therefore, we have to get the best price we can get for him now, and if that’s £25m, or £20m plus add-ons (with or without a player, or players, in part-exchange), then so be it.
Villan we never allowed Plop to bully us over Barry and lost around a third of the fee when he went to City
if the same happens to Milner we still get £20m
if Milner really wants to go, like at Newcastle a transfer request is the way to force it, forgo his money for the money
I’d rather keep Milner for two years, he improved immeasurably in just half a season in central midfield so he’s capable of being an even greater player next season. Lets look to examples of players like Gary Cahill as players we’ve sold too soon and not get sucked into the trap of thinking just because a player is in his last two years and doesn’t look like extending his contract that it will be a total disaster if we don’t cash in. For a player with such an incredible assists+goals ratio last season we’d be hard pushed to find anyone to replace him, whatever money we get and we ought to let City realise that. If they want a proven, yes, PROVEN player in England then let them pay what Milner is worth. If they don’t think he is worth it, let them waste money on more players who become as big a joke as Robinho has done.
Badger, I completely agree that the money in football is ridiculous, and that money (without proper regulation, as in the USA for example) has ruined the game. But let us remember that our own manager has frivolously wasted money on players like Reo-Coker (and others, such as Davies, Young, Shorey, Beye, Sidwell, Harewood, etc.). We have not got value for money out of these players, and they will be sold (if indeed there are any buyers) at huge losses.
It is as a direct result of our manager’s inability to manage a squad properly that we are as restricted as we are in the transfer market. The assets he has acquired have rotted, and are now worth just a fraction of what we paid for them – if anything at all. This is why we are short on trasnfer capital, and why we are needing to reduce our wage bill to make room for new signings.
Yes, football is money-mad, but so too is our manager.
No, Villain, we’re in the driver’s seat because we own Milner’s contract. It’s our decision whether to sell.
I hate the frequency with which teams sell their best players to better teams. Maybe it’s because, as an American, I’m too accustomed to American sports. Here, players generally stay with a team for the length of their contract — absent a trade — even if they’re wanted by better teams that can offer higher wages. (One of the best pitchers in baseball plays for a crap team for crap wages.) Regardless, selling your best player to a better team is a recipe for never being as good as that team. It’s why the rich (e.g., Manure) stay rich, and the poor (e.g., Wigan) stay poor.
Stick to our valuation of Milner and get two more seasons out of him — even if that means he’ll on a free at the end of those two seasons.
“And how do you propose the club do that?
Knuckleduster? Baseball bat? Shotgun to the head?”
I really didn’t think anyone would take it like that. I meant, if he won’t, send him off to the highest bidder at 25m. If no one comes in, then keep him for the 2 seasons, no matter what… Not hard to comprehend I thought.
Villain-from-Texas
If we were going to invest in the team and had even half a chance of qualifying for the Champions League (which, in this money-mad sport is where you have to be if you want to be considered a top club), then I might agree that it was worth keeping Milner for one or two more years. This was the situation with Barry; he stayed, and we invested about £50m in new players. But we don’t presently have the money to invest in the team, and we have virtually no chance of qualifying for the Champions League for the forseeable future with the team that we have. Keeping hold of Milner is therefore just throwing money away – money that we can’t afford to do without.
In fact, if we sold Milner for a considerable sum, it should benefit the club, because – in theory at least – we should be able to reinvest that money, and either strengthen the team as a whole, or bring in some young talent that, in the medium-term, will considerably strengthen the team. If he stays, we remain as also-rans, outside the top-four. If he goes, we have the opportunity to strengthen the club for the future. This is exactly what Spurs have done in the past few seasons; sold their best players and strengthened their team. I don’t think we have any choice but to sell Milner, but I think that selling him would be a great opportunity to improve the club’s fortunes, even if this wasn’t an immediate effect. Now, if only we could find someone to spend the money wisely…
Andrew
City have come in with an offer. The player wants to go. Their offer, although it might be below our valuation (which, one would think is set artificially high to deter bidders, at least if we really want to keep Milner…) is reasonable. We have to take it, even if it’s less than £25m. Milner is a decent guy. I think if City’s offer were derisory that he wouldn’t be wanting to leave. He would understand that City were being unreasonable and weren’t serious about him. But whatever the offer is, Milner clearly thinks it is reasonable, and for Villa to refuse it would be tantamount to us unfairly hindering his career prospects. As such, he is not going to be happy with the club, and an unhappy player shouldn’t be kept.
Villain:
I would rather have a 25-30 million pound player than three 10 million pound players. If we sell Milner, it’s unlikely that we’ll be able to replace him with equal quality. So I disagree that selling Milner gives us a chance to strengthen.
I also disagree that “we have virtually no chance of qualifying for the Champions League.” We’ve come pretty close the last two seasons. Who’s to say that we don’t have a good chance this season?
“[A]n unhappy player shouldn’t be kept.”
This type of thinking needs to be weeded out of football. You’re unhappy? You want to pout and play below your abilities as a result? Then sit on the bench for two seasons, and see if that hinders your “career prospects.”
If he isn’t grateful for all the club has done for him then get rid of him, the only reason we paid twelve million was because he forced his way out, if martin o’neill wanted to he could force him to stay keep him on the bench teach him a lesson tough love, villa is no longer a platform for potentials to showcase what they can do!!!!!
Villain-from-Texas
We can’t afford to keep Milner on the bench for two reasons. One, we’re paying him alot of money (though it could be argued this hasn’t stopped us keeping numerous other high-earners on the bench indefinitely). And two, as you recognise, he is crucial to the success of the team. If we did keep him on the bench, it wouldn’t dampen the interet of other clubs, and would actually have the opposite effect as his market value fell!
In the old days, when player were paid a pittance, and their livelihoods depended on being in the team in order to earn a new contract through their performances, benching him would work. After a couple of weeks he’d see sense and perhaps sign a new contract for a modest pay-rise. But these days players are financially secure. They have far more freedom to move between clubs. Milner could, if he wished, buy out his own contract, accept a six-month ban, and then sign a lucrative contract with another club. We would bring in about £5m in this scenario. Benching him is simply not an option.
As for him being worth £25-30m, that’s only because Man City might be willing to pay that much. We signed him for less than half that, and if we had a better scouting network we could sign three or four players of very similar quality for the same money. As it is, we might only manage two. But two such players (who are happy to play for us) are better than one Milner (who won’t be so happy).
It’s the nature of football that the best teams will get the best players. The trick is to pick up enough players who are going to become the best players, and therefore build a team that becomes one of the best. And funnily enough, selling someone like Milner for a large fee is crucial to the success of this strategy, which is the only viable strategy a club like ours can pursue. As I said earlier, look at Spurs.
We completely rolled over for Barry, instead of buying a striker with the little money we have buy another midfielder… Lee cattermole, Steven pieneer, axel witsel, Stephen Ireland all would cost 10-12 million which is rumoured to be what we have!
I think people are getting too hung up on the negatives here. If we keep Milner we have a quality centre midfielder, that doesn’t get injured or cause much fuss off the pitch, with absolutly no risk associated with signing a new player. If we get 20mil we can buy a couple of players assuming Randy hands the money over.
I think we all crave the excitement of signing a big name player, especially a creative or goal scoring one, even more so a foregin one because you don’t know what to expect. But MON does’t work that way and is not going to change, its completely annoying, but he has had relative success using this method.
Milners not that good infact i think hes distinctly average but more than makes up for it with 110% every game. £20m & Ireland would be a perfect deal for us as i personally believe Ireland is as good as Milner technicaly if not better & would suit our counter attack football better than Milner currently does. With that we have replaced the player we`ve sold almost like for like & gained a substantial amount of cash to improve the squad with further. I think this would suit city as their looking to let Ireland go anyway and should probably seal the deal for Milner.
If on the other hand city wont play ball then no less than £28m cash, especialy considering we have told them £30m which is common knowledge throughout football if we let him go for less then any half decent player we get we`ll have a host of teams knocking the door thinking were some sort of cheap feeder club which would only do harm to our image hence making us less attractive to perspective signings. Spurs is a perfect example they`ve been selling thier top players for big money for years constantly improving and adjusting the team and now look where they are, exactly where we want to be.
Mon really does need to stop wasting money and been so stubborn and instead of battling every summer to keep his “star” player when its clear they want to leave tell them okay either sign a new contract & prove your commited or hand in a transfer request and you can leave assuming the bid matches our valuation. none of this get him to stay another season & not be fully commited then sell him for pittance of his worth next summer. its got to be one or the other for me not this half hearted rubbish. id prefer the money myself but hey im not in charge!!
j:
“tell them okay either sign a new contract & prove your commited or hand in a transfer request and you can leave assuming the bid matches our valuation.”
This seems to be exactly what MON is doing.
I know this might sound like heresy here but is Milner really that good? Is he the sort of player we need?
£25 million has become his tag/his worth only because of Man City, no other teams have offered a fee for him (I have been out of the country for a while and may have missed some developments).
There is definitely a glass ceiling at Villa, we are restricted by our location, our salaries, our transfer kitty and no CL. We know MoN can motivate players to punch above there weight and this what will get us into the CL (if we are lucky) but our football last season resorted to energy and endeavour a bit of skill (Milners attributes) but not a lot of thought! We need the clever players in Midfield like Ireland and for Delph to break through and make his mark (any news?). So in short I say sell him, use the deal to get Ireland here and start playing a bit of intelligent football