the reaction from milner, or what we’re told to be the reaction, has come via stuart james of the guardian whose word i trust about as far as i can spit in the wind.

whatever the truth, what’s kinda sad about the bet hedging and jockeying for position is that milner is slap in the middle of his contract, yet this is all extremely standard stuff.

i’m not sure MON is exactly pro-active with these things though. not that it’s all his responsibility, but someone at the club should have been getting milner in some kind of pre-contract agreement before the season was finished.

not airtight, but harder to wriggle out of without being unmitigated arsehole.

That’s how I see it, although I probably didn’t explain my thoughts very well.
I don’t think MON has outright lied.
His supposed quote was that “James intimated”, for instance.

More likely, he hasn’t fully committed himself to Villa and he (more likely his agent) is hedging his bets.
Hence MON feeling a bit rebuffed and thinking “well sod you then” coupled with Lerner being quite happy for a deal to go ahead?

Pure guesswork of course.
But I’m even more convinced Milner is gone now.

As for Lescott, well not quite.
More like every youngish player who’s played for England recently is worth 8 figures

i don’t know what to make of the claim that milner & his agent are denying MON’s version of events. MON has sung his praises for 2 years and made all the right noises before the end of the season about getting him a new deal. it’s clear he was part of the long term plans.

he’s obviously trying to force things along now, but why would he outright lie to push his main man out? milner’s position at villa is pretty much untenable now. MON’s a smart man, he knew what he was doing.

the truth is probably somewhere in between the two, but milner’s been coy and noncommittal for far too long now. if he wanted to go, i wouldn’t expect him to say so publicly, but if he wanted to stay he could surely have said so and it would have been the club’s fault if they could find a deal.

The house round the corner is Joleon Lescott, as much as you don’t agree.
My house is worth a lot more than that house round the corner imo and I don’t want to sell hence I want substantially more for it.

I’m not going to keep up with that, but no doubt you know what I mean.
If City were vulgar enough to pay that amount for Lescott, they can do the same for us.

I can’t quite work out what is currently now going on, because as you are no doubt aware, word is going round that Milner is fuming at the suggestion that MON has said he wants to leave and that he has turned down contract negotiations.

My guess is that MON has said this as a hint to city, because he wants to get things moving one way or the other, so he knows where he stands.
(I think I said on here before that leaving it until the very last minute would kills lots of club’s plans).

I’d also guess that City know the exact requirements for us to do a deal.
Which means that maybe we’ve all got Milner wrong in thinking he wants out?

If what I think is correct (and I think it is not far off the mark, seeing as we know MON seems to be able to fall out with himself and is quite happy with confrontation), Milner won’t be with us for long.

I still stand by my previous £30M or £20m and Ireland, no problem.
Otherwise, he stays, if we afford to tell them to do one.