Mustafa II
Well-known member
Not then part of the squad though.
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[Albion] Milner
- Thread starter Hovegull
- Start date
Not then part of the squad though.
I suppose this is where I don’t appreciate the inner workings of a Premier League team. I would assume (maybe wrongly) that all the time Milner is injured he’s spending a lot of time with physios etc and not joining in with regular training whereas a coach would be heavily in training every day and therefore having much more contact time with the younger players in which to pass on his wisdom etc.
albionalex
Well-known member
Was thinking today how we could have done with his leadership on the pitch.
Didnt you know we pay him £4m a year because he's able to lead from the changing room and makes all the difference to the kids? The price of 5500 season tickets. Im glad the club put our prices up to pay him because its amazing vfm.
Your season tickets is piss in the ocean compared to TV money so there's no direct correlation between tickets and player wages.
Seagullinhove
Active member
- Oct 31, 2024
- 64
Clutching at straws !
albionalex
Well-known member
What?
ACobweb
Active member
- Dec 27, 2022
- 40
Looking back, re-signing Milner (and offering Lallana a new deal) was the first sign of just how muddled our recruitment was going to be last summer. Even the most optimistic of onlookers could see last season that the guy was knackered and being a good presence in the dressing/treatment room alone does not justify a PL player's wages (we could have just hired another coach for a fraction of the cost).
Its almost like the club thought that raising the mean average age of the squad by having a really old guy in there would magically fix our overall lack of experience and leadership (the main reason for performances like yesterday's in my view).
For a club that's so financially prudent, we didn't half just waste a lot of money on a bloke who's biggest achievement in two seasons was telling Jack Hinselwood not to wear a snood.
Its almost like the club thought that raising the mean average age of the squad by having a really old guy in there would magically fix our overall lack of experience and leadership (the main reason for performances like yesterday's in my view).
For a club that's so financially prudent, we didn't half just waste a lot of money on a bloke who's biggest achievement in two seasons was telling Jack Hinselwood not to wear a snood.
Not only yesterday
Lenny Rider
Well-known member
- Sep 15, 2010
- 6,419
Hell of a statement, are you not familiar with the likes of Mark Farrington or Jason Peake?
Nobby Cybergoat
Well-known member
- Jul 19, 2021
- 9,840
It's a bit less easy to feel like that when you have to pay for one, and the prices have just gone up
Nobby Cybergoat
Well-known member
- Jul 19, 2021
- 9,840
Agree with this.
I mean, I'm not saying he offers nothing (well maybe he does, it's difficult to tell when you're not in the dressing room).
But paying all those millions a year for a player who used to train well when he was fit, who can maybe make good pre game motivational speeches and who may become a coach at the club (or like Lallana take the £90p/w for 4 years then go off to coach somewhere else) is just a fantastical waste of money. And I agree suggests muddled thinking in what we're trying to do. We've got plenty of experienced players and we've got plenty of coaching staff who can surely do everything Milner does
You can underestimate the value of having ultra professional players in a squad where plenty of people need to learn to be top level professionals... but it seems Tony doesn't, so we're probably going to continue signing these type of players now and then.
Nobby Cybergoat
Well-known member
- Jul 19, 2021
- 9,840
Is Welbeck not a top professional? Has Dunk not led by example his whole career? Has Steele not conducted himself impeccably? Might Veltman not have passed his experience of European football to the others?
The thing about a player, if you going to pay them players wages there should be some expectation that they're going to ... well .... play
Feck do I know if these are as professional as Milner? None of them are going to play in the PL when they're his age so clearly the lad has done something right.
Regardless, you need that group of experienced players to be indeed a group, and to be the most dominant group in the squad. Especially if signing lots of young foreign players.
Take Barcelona as an example. Cruijff built his "golden team" on a core of Spanish players keeping party freaks like Romario and Stoichkov (sometimes) out of the pub. When Cruijff was sacked and van Gaal one or two years later became the manager, he cleared out the old gang and brought in 8 or 9 young Dutch lads. With no type of dressing room hierarchy, these players would soon become the dominant faction of the team. They had no interest in what the 2-3 remaining old Spaniards did. They played poker in hotel rooms deep into the night before games, fully used the Barcelona night life, and in the end nearly all the players failed. Players like Frank de Boer, Michael Reiziger, Winston Bogarde, Patrick Kluivert etc all peaked just before or just when they arrived to Barca.
Fair to say the Milner signing hasn't worked out due to him being unavailable pretty much all the time, but I don't think the idea is wrong. If, like last season, you have 5-6 South Americans and no core of experienced British players, it can very easily go tits up. To quote RDZ: "The club doesn't need to worry when I leave, they need to worry when Steele, Dunk, Webster, Milner, Lallana leaves". Maybe he mentioned someone more, don't remember the exact quote. But even that knob saw the importance of having that core.