15 Sept 2014

Coutinho-killer? BR wants to sign 'dream' £15m star who can leave for 65% discount

Liverpool continue to be linked with a move for Manchester City star James Milner, and according to reports over the weekend, the midfielder is likely to leave the Etihad during the January transfer window.

65% Price Crash: BR wants to sign 'dream' £15m midfield star. Game-changer, or benchwarmer?

In July, The Guardian reported:

"With Milner in the final 12 months of his contract...Liverpool and Arsenal have made inquiries and [are] interested in signing him".

On Sunday, Sky Sports claimed that:

* Liverpool, Everton, and Arsenal remain 'interested' in Milner.
* Man City value him at £15m, but are willing to accept £5m (a 65% discount).

When asked last month about Liverpool's alleged interest in Milner, Anfield legend Gary Gillespie enthused:

"He [Milner] is a manager's dream. He doesn't upset the apple cart, and you know what you're going to get. He doesn't really catch the eye, but he works his socks off, and doesn't get the rewards he deserves".

Milner is the archetypal British player: full of running; endless stamina; good at tackling, tracking back etc, but short on genuine guile and skill. He is a steady, reliable payer, but his pedestrian brand of huff-and-puff football is definitely not going to take Liverpool to the next level. Milner's creative stats over the last 4 years:

* 2013-14: 2 goals/15 assists in 44 apps.
* 2012-13: 4 goals/7 assists in 35 apps.
* 2011-12: 3 goals/5 assists in 37 apps.
* 2010-11: 3 goals/8 assists in 42 apps
* TOTALS: 12 goals/35 assists in 158 apps
* Goal every 13 apps | Assist every 4.5 apps.

Enough with the British players already! The likes of Milner, Allen, Lambert, and Lallana will not win the league for Liverpool. Teams composed of 80%+ Brits in the starting line-up very rarely win the top trophies, and the Reds have more than enough Brits in the squad.

Rodgers went for youth over the summer, and that policy doesn't appear to working at the moment. The new players will need time, but in January, one or two top class, experienced players are required, and although Milner meets the experience criterion, he is not (IMO) the answer, even for £5m.

If Liverpool do sign Milner, though, Coutinho's place will arguably be under most threat. The England midfielder can play left, right, or central, and he's no real threat to Sterling, Henderson, or Gerrard.

free polls


Author:


35 comments:

  1. Ryan Babel is Dutch10:07 pm, September 15, 2014

    i am very worried about coutinhos form
    maybe it will be wise to get rid when stocks still high something we failed to do with reina or agger


    and raheem can be the main number 10

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ryan Babel is Dutch10:11 pm, September 15, 2014

    before fans get all defensive about coutinho


    we have lost 18m on reina not including wages when we did not to sell to arsenal in 2010 we lost him for 2m to bayern munich


    agger we rejected a 16m bid from barca last season now we lost 13m on his value as we lost him for 3m


    rodgers job is to see whether coutinho still has it in him if not he must get rid before others start seeing it

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jamie, read the last 2 lines of your article, which states
    "MILNER IS THE ANSWER"
    Are you sure thats the message you wished to convey. ?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for that. Amazing how missing one word can entirely change the meaning of the post (!)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yes it is, if you edit it, delete my posts.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Nicolas Chamberlain10:54 pm, September 15, 2014

    If the club is able to sell Lucas the coming transfer period, Milner would be a welcome addition. He can play as a holding midfielder or central left or right in a 4-1-2-1-2 formation. Off topic: what a progression Henderson made. I think its a wise decision by BR.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Milner is not the answer! All huff & puff with barely any end result! We need serious quality, City only keep him for the quota system. It's quite sad because he went from being an England international to a mascot!

    ReplyDelete
  8. A 15 million rating for Milner belongs in the same bracket as the 10 million rating for Glen Johnson the other day.
    I'm fairly ambivalent towards this. Milner is a decent player who I wouldn't be against signing in January if our squad needs at that stage of the season requires a player of his characteristics. He could realistically compete for every position in midfield. He's tailor made for either flank on our diamond.
    He maybe won't take us to the next level, but no player signed for 5 mil is going to do that.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Good idea. Let's cash in on Sterling and Sturridge while we're at it. Pfft

    ReplyDelete
  10. That's what we need...an older, slower, less energetic Jordan Henderson...not.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Instead of degrading English players at every opportunity...I'd rather be realistic. Milner for 5m is a bargain.


    His creative return is very similar to Henderson's, but he has an immense impact on team. Milner is also far more skillful than what has been made out here and he can play anywhere.


    Allen sitting behind Milner and Henderson could work nicely. If any player needs to be put under pressure, it's Gerrard, who no longer fits the team dynamic. On the other hand, Milner does.

    ReplyDelete
  12. In the prem Coutinho, I believe, can only play as one of three central midfielders. I dont trust him anywhere else. The lads first 6 months with us is proving to be a complete smokescreen from an attacking point of view. I think he could do it in Italy or spain where the pace is slower but the prem has found him out. He lacks pace and movement which is criminal.



    Would I be sad to see a trio of Gerrard, Hendo and Milner........... the answer is no. Would I be happy seeing Milner on the wing? Definitely not. Allen would go before Coutinho anyway for me.

    On a side note isnt it funny how we have all of a sudden made the diamond popular in England again? Mourinho used to favour it at Porto and them dumped it. Now Hodgson and BIG FAT SAM are giving it a go. The death of the winger could soon be fast approaching.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Not to mention that we almost won the title with the most british of the top teams in the league. And they were not the reason we didn't win it in the end.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I don't think it will happen, precisely for the reasons that you don't want it to. He would have no place in the team. Unless Rodgers fancies him as a holding midfielder, which is highly unlikely, I can't see the point. I think it's just paper talk and Liverpool are not remotely interested.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Spirit of the Shadows3:19 am, September 16, 2014

    He is versatile, hardworking and English , I am afraid he is a perfect BR kind of a player.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Agree that we may need one or two more signings in the January window. Schneiderlin would be my top choice over Milner.

    ReplyDelete
  17. I think I've said it before, but if we didn't have Henderson I would say this might be worthwhile, but IMO he is the same player as him, but I think Henderson is better, and has more potential to become better (being younger).

    ReplyDelete
  18. Ancelotti used to favour it at Milan and Chelsea as well.

    ReplyDelete
  19. And look at Arsenal without RVP Nasri Fabregas but with Giroud Cazorla and Ozil

    ReplyDelete
  20. Coutinho was Liverpools best CM from January onwards

    ReplyDelete
  21. Nope. We didn't. We never had that money so we lost nothing. We in fact gained £5m combined. You can't lose something you haven't got and we didn't sell to Arsenal or Barca. Plus, who knows, if Reina went to Arsenal in 2010 maybe he would have been brilliant and that would have affected us via some sort of time-space butterfly effect malarchy... Basically there is no version of reality, no string of continuity, no parallel or perpendicular universe, series of events or timeline where that happened. If you go into shoulda's & woulda's, we should have waited and held on to Alonso, who knows what kind of £££ we could have made? Or we wouldnt have wasted our time on StuDow, Andeeyore Carroll, Joke Cole, Paul Konchesky (doesnt need a witty name, we all know how incredibly poor he is), Christian Poo-lsen (tee hee), or Roy Hodgson for that matter. More to the point Re: Coutinho, he is a bit younger than either Pepe or Agger were when we got those bids and were already at their peaks. At 23, Couto has a fair few years in him to reach his peak. I just have a bad feeling we'll regret it if we got rid of him. No regrets with Agger and Pepe, they are happy and wouldnt go to another PL club, that's all I care about.

    ReplyDelete
  22. For £5m I'd sign him, but I think he'd be pushing for Gerrard or Allen's spot. He's got decent passing range, good vision, buckets more pace and pitch covering than Gerrard, and with consistent game time he'd certainly score more goals than the furious leader has scored (penalties excluded) in the last couple of seasons. He'd be a great squad addition and I feel he could help out the likes of Lallana, Hendo and Allen as a kind of co-mentor with Stevie.
    PS: Big congrats to Jordan Henderson, our new VC. What a champion and the only player I'll have on the back of my shirt this season (unless I cave and buy the ugly yellow one for lawls and then it'll be Sterling 31 :)

    ReplyDelete
  23. Forget Milner, go for Reus and sell Coutinho. He's way too inconsistent for a top 4 team.

    ReplyDelete
  24. As long as Rogers' faith is on Henderson and Allen, there is no real need for Milner, even though I feel that Milner is a very capable player. The difference between him and Henderson and Allen is only marginally for the better at best and he is rather old compared to our two central mids.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Think he needs regular games, which is going to be difficult.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Can anyone explain what Milner offers offensively ?
    Trust me if we drop Coutinho Real Madrid or Barcelona will happily take him off us.
    Milner represents everything thats wrong with English Players..just a workmanlike average non threatening player. If I had to sum up a Average English player he'd be it.

    ReplyDelete
  27. yes he did. He just lacked the backing to bring in the pacy strikers he really needed to sustain their dominance. They bought a legless Torres and also had no real no.10

    ReplyDelete
  28. *at Chelsea

    ReplyDelete
  29. Only sign Milner as a defensive mid guy replacing Lucas. Not a Daley Blind level guy so we should extend the to find a solid DM. I don't see Milner as an offensive quarterback at all so not a Coutinho killer in the slightest. More like a Lucas killer..............

    ReplyDelete
  30. We should strongly consider Ricardo Rodriguez in January and deploy him as a DM.................

    ReplyDelete
  31. Milner wud b good but I still think we need the likes of reus and lavezzi pedro them player's r quality and another quality cb to play with lovern.

    ReplyDelete
  32. He's a top player but he's already indicated playing in England doesn't interest him. Also don't think he'd be happy joining us and playing out of position and in Moreno, I truly believe we already have a top left back.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Milner is a solid signing, his role isn't to create so the stats posted are essentially meaningless.
    Remember when he came on against us for City last season? It was his play that set up a goal and it was when he came on that City pressed us more due to a change in their set up as he offers something different to Silva/Nasri et al.
    Oh and Milner is far more like Henderson than Coutinho.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Coutinho's creativity and attacking ability is on a different level from that of Milner. Coutinho is one of the brightest prospect in our current Liverpool side. What exactly is the motive of this article?

    ReplyDelete