I never fully took to Milner the way many did. Thought we overspent - like I think Citeh have now. There must be a dearth of old-fashioned, tireless, energetic English players with a decent shot. For him to command the transfer fees he has, I'm obviously not getting something about Milner. Maybe it's because I tend to take to the more technically gifted players at the Villa - all the better if they're homegrown, which is why I'll always have a soft spot for those foolish men Lee Hendrie and Luke Moore...
He's too offensively-minded to be a sitting midfield player but he doesn't have the vision or consistency in his passing to be an attacking one. So he's somewhere in between. Barry was in a way too - but he can spot a pass far better than Milner and his left foot helps give balance.
Until he moved into the middle last season, he seemed to do a lot of huffing and puffing on the wing without much end product. Sure it's great to have a player who will run all day but when they don't have to, because of a superior touch or a quicker mind when it comes to football, all the better. Which I think Ireland has over Milner, quite comfortably.
Even on Saturday, though he played well, I thought he was quiet at the start, and thought he might be going missing a bit due to the crowd's initial reaction. He went on to have a good game but, his finely taken goal aside, I honestly thought that Downing, Young, Petrov and Albrighton played better.
Mac summed it up best on the other thread - Milner was consistently a 7/10 player, Ireland will geneally be a 9 or a 5. If he feels wanted and is given a run I reckon there'll be a lot more of the former. But with a tight defence, hopefully a stong backbone to midfield, be it NRC, Petrov, Delph eventually, hopefully we'll have a platform for him to prosper. He has the bit of magic that makes a player worth the admission price we've been craving for years. Young and Albrighton/Downing can provide it on the wing, now we've someone who can do it in the middle, something MON didn't seem to place too much importance on.
