England’s Most Wanted: James Milner

by Simon Sparrowhawk

Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United – not a bad list of clubs to have chasing your signature. It’s fair to say, James Milner is spoilt for choice this summer.

On Wednesday, Manchester City started the transfer saga of the summer with a £20million bid for the England midfielder’s services. Aston Villa, who Milner could yet stick with, rejected the offer without a moment’s hesitation. As Martin O’Neill and Randy Lerner said an emphatic “No way” to City, they also began a bidding war amongst the richest clubs in the country.

Chelsea are said to be monitoring Milner’s situation very closely and a good World Cup campaign for the 24-year-old could give Carlo Ancelotti all the confirmation he needs to make an offer of his own. The Blues see Milner as a long term replacement for free-scoring Frank Lampard and, with their new policy of buying British, a move is surely on the cards.

Arsenal’s interest is far more recent, in fact it began the moment Cesc Fabregas asked to leave the Emirates. The Gunners will receive somewhere in the region of £40-£50million from Barcelona for their captain’s services, giving Arsene Wenger a sizeable summer budget. Arsenal’s status as North London’s Premier club is coming under serious threat from Tottenham Hostpur so they must replace their talisman and Milner has everything they need. He scores goals, he has good vision and technique but most importantly he has a brilliant engine and is not afraid to get stuck into tackles.

It’s City who have opened the bidding for Milner, but could it be their arch rivals who seal the deal? It’s widely reported that Sir Alex Ferguson is keeping an eye on Milner and there were rumours a month or so ago that a deal had already been done. Clearly this was not the case but United do have money to spend. They agreed a £35million fee with Lyon for Karim Benzema last summer, which they have not spent elsewhere. Milner fits the Ferguson mould nicely too. He has worked hard to improve his performances on the pitch and he keeps himself to himself off the field. The recently deposed champions need a regular contributor of goals from midfield to ease the burden on Wayne Rooney and Milner would provide that.

Rumours have surfaced about possible interest from Liverpool but a move to Anfield would be a sideways one for Milner now. If he is not desperate to play Champions League football then a move to Man City would be financially rewarding and the club is definitely going places.

Personally, I fear Milner will end up moving to Eastlands after City blow everyone out of the water with an extravagant offer. The safest move for the former Leeds man would be to make his way to Old Trafford where he would still get regular first team football and the guarantee of competing for trophies at home and in Europe.

James Milner is definitely the most wanted man in England, but what is the price on his head? And, who will pay it?

How Martin O’Neill Returned Aston Villa to Glory

When Martin O’Neill and Randy Lerner combined to take over Aston Villa in Summer 2006, no-one could’ve predicted the heights they would take the club in such a short period of time.  When O’Neill, a former Nottingham Forest legend, was introduced at Villa, he described his aspirations for the club in terms of making the Champion’s League in a “Five Year Plan”.  Two and a half season later, Villa are currently third in the English top flight and continue to improve at a remarkable rate under O’Neill.

Villa have never been regarded as an English powerhouse, but every few years, they show they have the potential of being a long-term threat to the likes of Manchester United and Liverpool.  Before O’Neill arrived, they were sputtering frequently and looked likely to be a squad dealing with relegation battles in the upcoming years.  The second MON walked in the door, with Randy Lerner by his side, things changed.  Slowly, but surely, Villa began showing signs that they were building the club so many supporters knew they could be…

In his first campaign, O’Neill led Villa to a respectable improvement as they jumped five spots to an 11th place finish.  Villa youngster frontmen Gabriel Agbonlahor flourished under MON and long-time Villa midfielder Gareth Barry also solidified the squad which was happy to finish the season without relegation worries.  It was in the 2006-2007 January transfer window that O’Neill made his first splurge with Lerner’s cash when he handed Watford almost GBP 10m for a talented and skilled winger by the name of Ashley Young.  Young, as everyone knows, would prove to be an excellent buy and his purchase would probably be the biggest event during O’Neill’s first season at Villa.  In January, O’Neill would also bring in striker John Carew in a pure exhange for Milan Baros, a deal which would prove profitable for Villa.

The summer before the 2007-2008 campaign allowed Villa to completely transform to allow MON to pursue what he knew his growing giant could accomplish.  Villa allowed several starters go, but more importantly he brought in the players he felt would allow his squad to take another step forward.  The additions of Reo-Coker, Harewood, Davies, Knight, and Keeper Scott Carson (loan) helped catipult Aston Villa even farther up the table in 08-09.  The season proved to be a very up and down one, but when all was said and done, Villa ended in the 6th spot and had earned a backdoor spot into Europe through the Intertoto Cup.  It was becoming obvious that the potential and talent being compiled at Villa Park would eventually allow the club to explode, but no-one could’ve guessed it would all take place in 2008-2009, which would be O’Neill’s third season at the helm.

The additions of Steve Sidwell, Brad Friedel, James Milner, Carlos Cuellar, Luke Young, and Nicky Shorey capped another successful summer window for the Villa and their early form proved they were in good shape to repeat the previous season’s performance.  Going to the Emirates in mid-November, they were obviously a top half of the table club, but the performance they gave that day at Arsenal would be a defining moment in the heart of every Villa supporter.  It would truly become a day that no Villa fan could forget, as Villa’s youth and pace proved deadly and despite missing an early penalty, Ashley Young helped set up the first goal (Clichy OG), before Agbonlahor finished in style to give Villa three points and a 2-0 away win.  The win gave Villa momentum which they still haven’t lost to this date.  The boys have won 7 straight away from home in the league, and currently possess a comfortable Champion’s League spot in 3rd above Chelsea and Arsenal.  The rest of the season provides some tough fixtures for Villa, but based on current form it would be tough to see them not playing in Europe’s biggest club competition next season…..

No matter what the outcome is come the end of May, there is no doubt that what Martin O’Neill has done at Aston Villa is truly remarkable.  From day one he has had a goal and has had a definite plan to get there.  He knows what he wants from each player in his squad, and has the complete trust of Randy Lerner to buy players he knows can fill these rolls.  Even if Villa don’t finish off this season in the Top Four, it will still serve as a reminder to all of England that Aston Villa and Martin O’Neill are most certainly on the rise and will continue to do so until MON and Villa reach the goals they set out to accomplish together from the day the man walked in the door……MARTIN O’NEILL-A VILLA LEGEND

By RJ Sepich

Why Aston Villa doesn’t deserve Champion’s League Football….yet

Hello all. First off I’d like to thank Abayomi for inviting me to join his team here with this growing blog and it will be my pleasure to voice my opinions on the world of soccer because it is one thing I certainly love to do.  Here’s a bit about myself:  my name is Roger Sepich and I’m an Aston Villa supporter born and raised in America.  My recently found love of the best game in the world (soccer) has led me to becoming utterly mystified and enthralled with the “beautiful game” and The Barclay’s Premier League in particular.  After choosing Villa as my club I’ve lived and breathed English and European soccer and now here I am discussing the sport and team I love…

But now to my first thoughts as a writer for SFB:  Why Aston Villa doesn’t deserve Champion’s League Football…yet.  Yes I can see that many of you believe me when I say those words, judging by the large number of Arsenal and Everton fans currently writing for this site, but it’s extremely hard for me to admit considering I’m a diehard member of Martin O’Neill’s claret and blue army.  As a Villa supporter, I’d LOVE to see Villa back where they belong in the biggest club tournament in Europe, but at the same time, I have to admit finishing in the top 4 this campaign could possibly be a bad thing for Aston Villa.  Villa do have an extremely young and talented squad, but one thing the gaffer has failed to do is bring in any type of quality depth.  With the likes of Nicky Shorey, Moustapha Salifou, and Craig Cardner usually being the best quality on the bench, it allows even a Villa fan like myself to ask if we are deserving of a spot in the hallowed grounds of the Premier League top four.

I know Ashley Young and Gabby Agbonlahor have performed lights out this season and Laursen continues to be strong at the back, but with our lack of depth, if one of these guys were to be sidelined for an extended period of time I’m afraid I could see the Villans losing out on their top four chances rather easily.  Injuries are indeed a part of the game and are something that help determine the final league table come May and so far Villa have been rather fortunate on this front.  But I’m afraid this may end at some point and leave Villa in quite a hole.

With Aston Villa currently sitting in fourth, level with Man U on points and 3 clear of Arsenal, here is a short list of other reason I feel we should consider ourselves lucky to be where we are:

• With the season beginning in July for Villa through the Intertoto Cup, fatigue suprisingly hasn’t set in despite only consistently using about 15 different players in important matches.
• Throughout the course of the season Villa have played certain clubs at perfect times with their opponents being on horrible form such as their matchups with Tottenham, Sunderland, Wigan, WBA, Hull, and argueably Arsenal away. This lead to 18 easy points that easily could’ve been between 12-14.
• Two early (and somewhat lucky) UEFA Cup wins allowed Villa to rest key players in the other two matches.
• Here’s one that a smile at when I see:  Villa have been the fortunate recipient of 4 own goals in the past two months that resulted in at least 4 more points than they would’ve had.

I believe the next month or so will ultimately decide whether Arsenal, Villa, or even Everton can finish the season 4th.  Villa have West Brom, Sunderland, Portsmouth, Wigan, and Blackburn in their next five matches before they enter a tough period in February and March and I believe they MUST get at least 12 points from these matches and need to be a solid 5 points clear of Arsenal after this period.  If they don’t do this I cannot see them breaking up the Big Four this year, but either way it could come down to the wire.

So what do you all think?  Will Villa last and finish in the top four or will lack of depth catch up to them and maybe their luck will run out? I hope not! Feel free to comment. Cheers for now.

By RJ Sepich

Sometimes, the league table does lie.

Hello everyone, first things first, an introduction. I am the writer of the football blog They Think It’s All Over… and Abayomi has kindly asked me to write weekly blogs on this site. I am a huge Evertonian and so my blogs will focus on football happenings on the blue half of Merseyside, and I do try and write fairly and without bias, but as you will all know, sometimes one’s heart can get the better of you, so I apologise in advance in case that happens. I hope you enjoy reading what I have to say, please leave comments and visit me at my site if you do!

To business then, and I intend today to put forth an argument in contradiction of one of football’s great old sayings, that ‘the league table doesn’t lie’. If we are thinking entirely literally, to challenge it seems insanity itself. The league table displays the stats of each team in accordance with how they have performed that season, it doesn’t make them up, and so it doesn’t lie. However, if one considers the league table to be an indicator of which teams are the best, I believe that, on occasion, it can be found to be fallacious.

The point of this argument and the relation it holds to my club, Everton, is that I firmly believe that Everton are a better team than Aston Villa. Villa currently occupy the fifth spot (but will perhaps move back to fourth once they play Hull City later today) while Everton are in sixth. Thus many would argue that Aston Villa are, at present, superior to Everton as a team. This is probably the view of the media too, who have been quick to praise Martin O’Neill’s men this season, as they have indeed put in some impressive displays.

There is even serious suggestion that Aston Villa may do the unthinkable and break the monopoly of the ‘big four’ on the Champions League places this season, probably at Arsenal’s expense. And I must concede, Villa have had a blinding season so far. Picking up points against most of the ‘big four’ and looking very impressive in beating the lower sides too, they certainly are a forced to be reckoned with. But I don’t think they’re better than Everton.

You see, Everton haven’t had a very good season so far. We haven’t really got into our stride form-wise, and our best players especially have taken a long time to get going – they are now starting to, but so far, the likes of Mikel Arteta and Joleon Lescott have been below par, as was Yakubu, before he got injured.

And there’s another point, injuries. Now one cannot make excuses and I am not trying to do so, there is no gurantee that we would have fared any better without the injury troubles we’ve had. But I think it is fair to think it entirely likely that if we had had slightly better luck with injuries, we may have fared a tad better so far this term. I mean, what team wouldn’t suffer with injuries to the likes of Cahill, Arteta and Yakubu? As well as others to Pienaar, Osman, Anichebe, Vaughan, Valente and more at other times? There has not been a single game this season when Moyes has not been forced to name a teenager amongst his substitutes, and while we have some great young talent (boy, do we!), it can leave you short of experienced options, which are important.

But aside from a lack of form and troubles with injury, it was the start of the season that really struck us down. We had a very unsettled summer. Huge frustration in the transfer market led to the season beginning without any major signings and then in the last few hours we payed a hell of a lot for a big Belgian fella’ with funny hair. Don’t get me wrong, Fellaini has done well since he joined, but it wasn’t the Summer we all pictured after last season’s fifth place finish.

But then, we are not a club who has ever had a lot of money to spend. Moyes spent fifteen million (ish) on Fellaini and pretty much bugger all else on the others, and that has probably done us for the season. But aside from financial stringencies (which in the current economic climate are looking more and more sensible as time goes on) we had the other upsets of a manager hesitant to sign a new contract and a stadium move that was flickering on and off more than a bloody strobe light.

Moyes’ indecision over whether to put pen to paper on his contract was bemusing. He stated a number of times that everything was essentially in place and so we were just thinking ‘well just sign the damned thing then’. But it rumbled on and on and it got to the point where I actually thought that the best young manager in the country (go on, challenge that statement) might leave our club. Whether it was a lack of transfer funds or just a genuine patch of cold feet we may never know, but certainly, since he signed, we have gone uphill quite quickly. A bit of stability goes a long way at a football club.

The other thing was the ground move. I for one am hesitant to leave Goodison, especially for somewhere outside the city, but it seems the club are keen and we ‘need’ to so they pushed on. Unfortunately it all seems to have gone tits up and has left a rather bitter atmosphere around the club. None of this should affect the players really, because as long as they have a pitch to play on, that should be enough, but somehow in football, if there is unrest at a club at all, it does tend to filter through and have an effect on the playing staff.

All in all then, things were looking a bit grim. And then we had a very dodgy start to the season, and as we were holding our heads in our hands thinking things couldn’t get any worse, we went out of Europe. For me, that was a big thing. We got a really tough draw against Standard Liege, incredibly tough compared to the other English clubs, especially considering we were the top English qualifier and Man City snuck in because they ‘play fair’ (what a load of nonsense that is, just by the way).

We gave Liege a run for their money, but fair play to them, those Belgians are a top side and deserve to be in the UEFA Cup group stages as much as we do, which is a lot. Either way, the competition was going to lose a good team and we were it in the end. And that was disappointing for the club. We had such a great run in it last season, losing only on penalties to Fiorentina after having beaten the eventual champions Zenit St. Petersburg relatively comfortably in the group stages. To then find ourselves with no hope of repeating the adventure gave the club a huge dent to morale.

And we have a history in that department. A few years ago, after we finished fourth (yes, it HAS been done before, thank you very much) and qualified for the Champions League, we were all set for a rollicking good time in Europe when we crashed out. Drawn against (another toughy) Villareal we were unfortunate to be knocked out after Duncan Fergson had a goal calamitously ruled out in what was, without doubt, the worst decision in the career of the world’s best ever referee, old beady eyes himself, Pierre Luigi Collina.

Bounced into the UEFA Cup we then fell at the first hurdle against Dynamo Bucaresti (I think, but don’t quote me on it) and found ourselves not in Europe at all, despite our magnificent fourth place finish. That then had the added knock on effect of causing the players to lose morale almost completely and have a very stuttery first half of the season, almost like we have this time around, after again going out in the first round of the UEFA Cup.

So there we go, a (not so) brief summary of the various things that may have impacted on our season in a negative way so far. I say again, these are not excuses. There is no guarantee that things would have happened differently under different circumstances and many of them were our own doing, or at least avoidable, but I think it is fair to say that all of them, to some extent, may have hindered our progress through this season’s Premier League campaign.

And so we return, eventually but inevitably, to the reason behind this whole article. Because Villa haven;t had any of these problems really. They’ve had a few injuries, but who doesn’t? And it’s been nothing on the scale of what we have suffered. Their best players (indeed most of their players) have not been struggling for form. Gaby Agbonlahor have set the League alight and even earned the privilege of being mentioned in the same breath as ridiculous and doubtlessly career ruining moves to some of Europe’s top clubs in the English press.

They don’t have any particular financial worries either. Indeed, their foreign owner is probably the sort of foreign owner that Carlsberg would profess to provide (that is; the best foreign owner in the world). He does not lavish them with money and it’s good friend, pressure, but he provides for them what they need, and has the sensible nature to not mess around with affairs that are beyond his expertise. That meant that Villa had a good little summer, bringing in a few players to add good strength in depth to an already promising squad, without upsetting the apple cart by splashing out massively, as say, Tottenham did.

A much more accommodating draw in the UEFA Cup first round meant that they didn’t have much trouble getting into the competition proper and avoided the sort of blow to morale that has affected my club. All in all then, Villa’s path through this season has been altogether smoother than Everton’s rather bumpy one. Which suggests, to me, that the league table does, on occasion, lie.

I’m not saying categorically that Aston Villa are worse than Everton. Nor am I denying that on current form, Villa are superior to my beloved Toffees. But what I will contest is the assertions made by certain elements of the English media that Villa are the most worthy and most likely challengers to England’s ‘big four’. For one thing, people easily forget that we did in fact break the monopoly a few seasons ago. And for another, I think we are just as likely to do it again, as Villa are to do it.

Because if one takes away all the factors that I discussed above, Everton’s season would perhaps have panned out slightly differently. Because although we have had a poor start to the season form wise, we are still in sixth position. We are still only three points (maybe six by tonight) behind Villa themselves. We are still very much in touch for the European places. Imagine then, if our season had been as smooth as Villa’s. We could be well up there with the likes of Chelsea and Man Utd as well as that other Merseyside club. You know the ones I mean.

So for people to jump to the conclusion that Villa are the best team outside the ‘big four’ is to make a mistake I think. It is to do us a bit of an injustice. Because yes, they have been great, and yes, they hold their current position on merit, but, the league table doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story. Everton’s season has been blighted by disturbances and they are not reflected in the table, nor should they be. But I think the table may read differently if they had not occurred.

So before jumping on the Villa bandwagon, I say, give it some time. Let the road run it’s course. We have had our fair share of bumps and hopefully will not suffer too many more. Villa may have a few around the corner, and the true test will be if they can stand up to them as well and as successfully as Everton have so far. Villa and Everton are two very, very strong teams and I think they will push the ‘big four’ all the way. Let us wait and see the final league table before we make our final judgements though, because that table is one that doesn’t often lie, I will grant you that much.

Thank you for reading, I hope you found it worthwhile. Please visit my site if you did, by clicking the banner below. Cheers.