The Milner Novela... Final episode page 296

[Rip Van We Go Again]

Rubbish Chris, Risso is spot on here. Ireland is just the player we need and a player who is perfect to work with our current manager. Robbie Keane, Stephen Ireland and £10m in the bank is IMO an amazing deal for Villa. With £25m in the bank no club will let their player go unless they rinse us for a top top price.

Its' not rubbish, he is border line mental and his inconsistency is the reason he's for sale.
.

Chris.
You know fine well we're not going to sign him, otherwise you wouldn't be playing the 'mental' card.
Your tune would be somewhat different if MON raved about him.

[john e]

sell Milner to City, bring in Ireland and Barton, sorted

[Ads]

I like these future criticisms of O’Neill. I’m going to give it a go.

Taking Delph off in 70th minute is the reason we’ve lost two FA Cup semi-finals in a row.

 Its hella fun!

I think you could be right however remember Delph has not played many games since his return from injury  and  we should have defended  the corner better when Ridgwell headed  in the winner for Blues. <ouch>

You should be banned for that and you should then book yourself into your nearest mental institution as you pose a significant risk to the public, you lunatic.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

I think he plans to play a three. Petrov, Delph and Ireland perhaps? That's quite a lot of mobility in there, with Petrov's metronomic style clipping of passes to claret & blue shirts, coupled with Delph’s “fucking ‘av this soft lad!” approach to tackling.

Not bad. We’d need more cover though in there.

We certainly will need more cover as Delph will be lucky to be fully fit before the end of next season. Mentalist! (winky)

[Chris Smith]

Rubbish Chris, Risso is spot on here. Ireland is just the player we need and a player who is perfect to work with our current manager. Robbie Keane, Stephen Ireland and £10m in the bank is IMO an amazing deal for Villa. With £25m in the bank no club will let their player go unless they rinse us for a top top price.

Its' not rubbish, he is border line mental and his inconsistency is the reason he's for sale.

If we tried to play a midfield of Petrov and Ireland we'd be lucky to get in the top half, he's got ability but is not a replacement for Milner.

Ah good old dinosaur 4-4-2.

That's why you play Ireland in a free role in a 4-2-3-1.

Ah good old missing the point.

Who is it we're playing in this 3 given that Milner, Sidwell and Reo Coker are probably out of the door? Is it the other midfield player I said we'd need to buy so shouldn't be over spending on the over hyped Ireland?

[Chris Smith]

Rubbish Chris, Risso is spot on here. Ireland is just the player we need and a player who is perfect to work with our current manager. Robbie Keane, Stephen Ireland and £10m in the bank is IMO an amazing deal for Villa. With £25m in the bank no club will let their player go unless they rinse us for a top top price.

Its' not rubbish, he is border line mental and his inconsistency is the reason he's for sale.
.

Chris.
You know fine well we're not going to sign him, otherwise you wouldn't be playing the 'mental' card.
Your tune would be somewhat different if MON raved about him.

Bollocks, Mark.

I think he's a good player, I wouldn't mind us signing him but he's a luxury player and not one you'd want to rely on away at Bolton in January. So for that reason if we sign him the price would have to be right, not as an excuse for them to knock £15m off the Milner money.

[Mazrim]

Why arent we going to sign Ireland?

[Ads]

What would we be relying on him at Bolton for? Goals? Creativity? As I think we can.

If you're asking whether we'd rely on his industry and ability to break up play, then I'd say no, which is why I'd hope we'd be relying on Delph, Petrov and possibly one or two other midfield signings for that.

I think he's the sort of player we do need. I think he's better going forward than Milner, even if we forsake some of the midfield dynamism James offers, we can compensate for it with players like Delph and new faces far more easily than we can compensate for a lack of creativity.

I think he'll come as if he's going out the door then I'd have expected the Dunney Monster to have tapped him up.

As an aside I hear Witsel's been mentioned again. Imagine Delph and him in the same midfield? Ha ha!

[LeeB]

If we could sign Ireland, Keane and say Parker with the money from Milner , we'll still have our summer budget and money from offloaded players to bolster the rest of the squad with.

With Delph coming back around Christmas, I think we'd have a better balanced squad which would give us more flexibilty tactically.

[Risso]

If we could sign Ireland, Keane and say Parker with the money from Milner , we'll still have our summer budget and money from offloaded players to bolster the rest of the squad with.

With Delph coming back around Christmas, I think we'd have a better balanced squad which would give us more flexibilty tactically.

That would do for me Lee.  Assuming we keep Luke Young (doubtful I know, but you never know):

Friedel
Young Collins/Cuellar Dunne Warnock
Downing Ireland Parker Young
Gabby Keane

Has a nice balanced look about it.  Bit more ingenuity from Keane and Ireland, although we'd need Downing to put a bit of work in.  Delph could drop into a 5 man midfield when he's fit as well.

[PaulTheVillan]

If we could sign Ireland, Keane and say Parker with the money from Milner , we'll still have our summer budget and money from offloaded players to bolster the rest of the squad with.

With Delph coming back around Christmas, I think we'd have a better balanced squad which would give us more flexibilty tactically.

THIS.

[Chris Smith]

What would we be relying on him at Bolton for? Goals? Creativity? As I think we can.

If you're asking whether we'd rely on his industry and ability to break up play, then I'd say no, which is why I'd hope we'd be relying on Delph, Petrov and possibly one or two other midfield signings for that.

I think he's the sort of player we do need. I think he's better going forward than Milner, even if we forsake some of the midfield dynamism James offers, we can compensate for it with players like Delph and new faces far more easily than we can compensate for a lack of creativity.

I think he'll come as if he's going out the door then I'd have expected the Dunney Monster to have tapped him up.

As an aside I hear Witsel's been mentioned again. Imagine Delph and him in the same midfield? Ha ha!

Delph is out for most of the season though so that's not an option for now. I've said all along he's a good player but on his own he's no good to us so we need to buy somebody to do his running for him.

[Ads]

He’s not out for most of the season, but I expect and also accept that he’ll be out till just before Christmas and it will probably take another month for him to get up to speed again. This is probably why I wouldn’t sell NRC until January and hence why I suggested new faces. I think we need three more attacking options, but then I’d also like to see one or two more come in on top of that.

I think its far easier to cover issues of tackling with the likes of Petrov, NRC, Delph and whoever else we bring in, than it is to forgo the extra vision and creativity he offers that we lack now, be it from the centre or on the right side of midfield.

I also think it worth adding that with a player like Ireland in the side, we’d end up needing less defensive industry because we’d have a player who create space and allow us to keep the ball for longer.

[SoccerHQ]

Rubbish Chris, Risso is spot on here. Ireland is just the player we need and a player who is perfect to work with our current manager. Robbie Keane, Stephen Ireland and £10m in the bank is IMO an amazing deal for Villa. With £25m in the bank no club will let their player go unless they rinse us for a top top price.

Its' not rubbish, he is border line mental and his inconsistency is the reason he's for sale.

If we tried to play a midfield of Petrov and Ireland we'd be lucky to get in the top half, he's got ability but is not a replacement for Milner.

Ah good old dinosaur 4-4-2.

That's why you play Ireland in a free role in a 4-2-3-1.

Ah good old missing the point.

Who is it we're playing in this 3 given that Milner, Sidwell and Reo Coker are probably out of the door? Is it the other midfield player I said we'd need to buy so shouldn't be over spending on the over hyped Ireland?

Keep NRC for this season and use him a bit more.

Him, Ireland and Petrov as midfield trio.

I agree with Delph injured until Xmas we'd need another player to compete, get someone in like Dorrans or Veloso, both are younger and better value for money than Scott Parker I'd say.

I'm quite surprised you seem to be hitting so much on his attitude Chris, didn't Ireland go away one pre season and train really hard, running up mountains and stuff and what followed was the best season of his career.

[ozzjim]

On the pitch Ireland never seems to play badly from what I have seen, albeit not as much as I would hope a scout may have if we are in for him. One thing is for certain though, at 23 and with the eye for goal he has, his next move will be in the Milner price bracket IMO. City might well be happy for him to go with the plethora of Italian style defensive holders to clog up a game and be reliant upon magic from Silva et al going forward, but Ireland will prove a bargain wherever he ends up. 10-15 goals a season from centre of midfield is exactly what you need to push on.


I agree we would have to play 4-3-3 / 4-5-1 to accomodate him, but Petrov, Ireland and Delph or Reo Coker or Parker as mentioned on here would be a formidable midfield, Gabby is very good up top on his own and Young, Downing, The Fonz, Keane even, are all well capable of playing that wide role in that formation. Rooney, Anelka, Van Persie etc have all played that wide role at some point for the good of the side, and in a 4-5-1 it naturally allows more goal threat from a wider player as there is more emphasis on them getting in the box and more defensive cover behind them.