I recently asked whether Martin O’Neill was a great manager, or greatest and a few people contacted me to suggest that I was ahead of myself a little and he hasn’t really achieved the title “great” yet. Yet.

That’s a fair point. A touch of semantics aside, it was obvious that a large slice of subjectivity would influence any debate, so ultimately greatness, it would seem, is in the eye of the beholder.

With this in mind, I enjoyed Phil McNulty’s blog questioning Martin O’Neill’s description of James Milner as a “great player” following his winning goal at Ewood Park on Thursday night and the ensuing debate in the comments section. Unsurprisingly, there was a range of opinions expressed.

Personally, I’ve been a Milner fan since his first stint at Villa and was very happy to see MON splash the cash to bring him back to Villa Park. However, logically, I would have to say that if MON has yet to achieve the “great” moniker, then the same has to be said of James Milner.

Or does it? Is the criteria for judging the greatness or otherwise different from that of managers? It may well be, but here too I suspect a certain amount of subjectivity to come into play.

City Chase Gardner

Great or not, Milner’s move into the middle has definitely pushed Craig Gardner further down the pecking order and a long mooted exit is looking more and more likely after Birmingham City recently put in a £3.5m bid after their initial £3m bid was rejected.

This reminds me very much of Gary Cahill’s move to Bolton as MON certainly didn’t want to sell the player, but since he desperately wanted regular football, what else could be done? In the end, I think that £5m was a smart bit of business.

Gardner has his fans and there are advocates for him getting a run in the side, but I personally think that Petrov, Milner, Sidwell and Reo-Coker are all rightly ahead of him. It’s early days yet, but it certainly appears that the manager places Fabian Delph ahead of Gardner too.

He’s a talented player, there’s no question about that, but there’s a healthy blend of talent and experience in front of him. It’s a shame, but if it’s first team football he wants most (and who can blame him if that’s the case?), surely there’s little option left except ensuring we get the best fee possible.

I suppose a long term loan wouldn’t be out of the question, but that would generally suggest that the player is in the long term plans and just isn’t quite ready yet. I’m not convinced that Gardner could ever become more than a fringe player at Villa, especially as we look to have our constant thirst for more and more quality on the pitch quenched.

So I really wouldn’t be surprised if Craig does move on and, with all due respect, as a player who has made just one appearance so far this season, it would probably be for the best all round.

I seem to remember that it was City who were initially sniffing around Cahill, but the club held out for a better offer from Bolton.  If Gardner is to go, let’s hope we again thwart City’s advances, because regardless of your opinion of the player, he doesn’t deserve to go there!