I bet you would have loved to have been a fly on the wall at Bodymoor today, right? Well, the plot thickens. After the James Milner, his agent, Martin O’Neill and Paul Faulkner sat down for talks described as “amicable”, the following statement was issued by the club:-

AVFC Official Site
James Milner trained with the rest of the Villa squad today at Bodymoor Heath. He and the manager, along with chief executive Paul Faulkner and the player’s representative, Matthew Buck, had an amicable conversation and, while James will not play in tomorrow’s game at Walsall, he will fly with the squad to Portugal on Wednesday ahead of the Guadiana Cup in which Villa will compete with Benfica and Feyenoord this weekend.

Perhaps, like fattening the Turkeys before Christmas, it’s in our own interest to keep the player fit before selling him. Or maybe the whole thing has been an elaborate act to fool everyone into thinking he’s leaving, thereby stalling the entire transfer market, before we swoop into action, getting the jump on everyone in the process.

Maybe I shouldn’t think so much. Now, where’s my tinfoil hat?

On a more serious note, if he doesn’t prove a disruption, there’s no real harm in him travelling to Portugal I suppose. I’m not sure there would be a whole lot of logic in playing him if he wasn’t going to be part of the team going into the season, but then again the window does close after the new season begins.

Ironically, I’ve seen one or two others around the Villa sections of the interwebz expressing a frustration and boredom with what they see as a “saga”, when the reality is that very little of any real substance has actually happened so far. At least in the public arena in any case. For me, it’s only just started to get interesting, but then I make a point of sticking as far away from those tabloid rumours as possible.

That said, a swift resolution one way or t’other would definitely be welcome.