Bloggers of the Round Table 2: Top 4 Pretenders

Following on from the first Bloggers Round Table on Liverpool (which you can read over on FantasyEPL) is our second discussion. A reminder of the people involved in this project

1. Mike Hynter - Writer at EuroSport and part of the team that produces The Fantasist;
2. Nik Argiropoulos - Me! Author of the YFF Assistant Manager blog;
3. Susiendran Karunananthan - Author of the YFF Scout blog;
4. Mohamed Kileeny - Reader of FantasyEPL and Top 100 finisher in the YFF game this season;
5. Jeremy Spitzberg - Co-blogger at Fantasy EPL;
6. Neal Thurman - Co-blogger at Fantasy EPL;

I'll leave it to Neal to introduce what I thought was a really interesting topic....

Neal: I am going to nominate James Milner as the topic of this next post and even get more specific about what he means as a symbol of the ability of each of the current pretenders - AST, MAC, LIV - to challenge for a Champions League spot for next season OR the ability of England's highest profile club - MAN - to attract and pay top level talent given their financial situation, their location, and the higher taxes imposed on footballers in the UK compared to elsewhere in Europe.

I don't mean to ascribe THAT much importance to one player who is, in my opinion, definitely above average but certainly not a game-changer week in and week out but the question of where he will play his football next season seems that it will say a lot about the future of the Premier League on a number of fronts.

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Nik (AM): Very interesting questions and a clever way of approaching a complex issue.

Clearly Milner is not a world class midfielder, but he's just had an outstanding season (his first in centre midfield), he's still learning his new position, is only 24 years old, yet has 8 seasons of Premier League experience, and is on the verge of breaking his way in to England's starting XI.

In my opinion the only way is up for Milner, and the fact all this transfer speculation has left him refusing to commit his future to Aston Villa (referring to his time at the club in the past tense) is pretty worrying. After just a couple of season at Villa Park does he already feel Villa have hit their ceiling? They have the smallest squad of all the Champions League challengers & Randy Lerner has stated that Martin O'Neil must sell before he can invest any more in the team. O'Neil's decision to switch him to the center seem to have been the making of Milner and I'd say he owes them another season, but if he already sees his future elsewhere then perhaps that tells us something of Villa's ambitions.

That brings me to Liverpool, who despite all their problems (talked about in depth in our last round table) I would still consider a step up from Aston Villa & I'd put them ahead of the Midlands club if I made a list of the teams I believe will challenge for 4th next year. I also think Martin O'Neil would feel the same, which is why I'd be even more worried for Villa if Benitez was to leave.

As for Man City, their current ability is skewed by the ridiculous wages they can offer, but like Milner they are on the up & I think he could do a superb job for them - he'd certainly be better than any of their current midfielders (including Gareth Barry). City's pulling power and "lessons learnt" from this campaign will put them top of the teams challenging for 4th next season and unfortunately (for me anyway) it could be Spurs who find their stay in the elite short-lived.

Finally, Man United. If I was Milner I would forget the money on offer at City & head to Old Trafford. I don't actually think United going for Milner is any sort of slight on their (or the Premier League's) ability to attract world class players. Manchester United are one of the top 3 club destinations in the world and I still feel they could attract/pay top players top dollar if they really needed to. However, Alex Ferguson has always loved a British/Irish central midfield (Robson, Keane, Butt, Scholes, Fletcher, Hargreaves, Carrick etc) and has had his best success when building his teams around players approaching their peak rather than established (see Veron, Berbatov). Milner knows the league (8 seasons as mentioned), and has his best years ahead of him, he's hard working, seems to have the right attitude and I think he'd be perfect for Manchester United, while Ferguson would be perfect for the next stage of his career.

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Mohammed - James Milner will cost you 25M ? You must be kidding! Its amazing how those English players can cost you these days, if the lad was Spanish or Italian he will cost you max 10-15 M, but he is10M plus because he is English and he is a bit overated.

No doubts that the guy is a good player but for god sake how can he cost 25M? For Man City it will be just a good additional player to the squad as they got plenty of money and can waste it everywhere to anybody but the guy wont do anything, he is not a match winner or even like a commanding presence in the middle of the park not someone like Gerrard, Old Vieira, Roy Keane.

For Liverpool, I dont think they need a player like Milner, they dont have the money to pay for him and I would NEVER pay for him 25M for him, its better to go and buy two good players with pace and skill or a top Striker with that money instead of wasting it.

Man United? Also i dont think they need him, they got plenty of players that plays in that role and they have Owen Hargreaves (injury free) which is a bit similar to Milner for next season.

So mark my words, I think Milner will be a Man City player for next season.

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Jeremy - Is 25mil a reflection of his nationality, or just the fact that it's Citeh making the offer?

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Nik (AM) - Bingo. Look at Lescott - a £7m defender will always cost more if he's English, but maybe £10m would've been expected...he goes for £18m+ because it was City. It's very possible Milner (worth £15m-ish) could've ended up going for £18m-£20m, but City started things at £20m. Naturally Villa will reject the first offer so now the bidding war begins at a price it should've ended at.

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Neal - I agree that it is really the Citeh factor in play here.  If you think back to some of the silly offers that Chelsea made for above-average (but not great) English players when they were trying to establish themselves as legitimate contenders (think Scott Parker, Wayne Bridge, SWP, etc.) the same thing happened.  If you don't have the prestige of being Manchester United, Arsenal, or Liverpool or the lure of a Champions League spot then you're going to have to pay way over the odds until you CAN offer those things.  Even then we see that Chelsea still has to break the bank to attract top talent in a way that Barcelona never does because players crave the chance to play for Barca but they probably grew up thinking about Chelsea as a nice little club if they even thought about them at all. 

Funny to think that so many of the cast-offs from Chelsea's first buying spree have ended up as part of Citeh's first buying spree as well.  I guess we can call Wayne Bridge and SWP the nuveau riche starter kit of the footballing world (and good for them for being in the right place at the right time). 

I will take issue with Mohamed's opinion that ManYoo don't need a player like Milner.  If I were them I'd want someone BETTER than Milner to play attacking central midfield (the "Scholes Role") but they certainly need someone to replace Scholes' corpse and the ill-fitting combination of Giggs, Fletcher, Carrick, and Park who are all good players but poorly suited to that role.  Hargreaves is a defensive midfielder and there is nothing in his injury history that indicates that he's going to stay healthy for more than 10 straight minutes even if he is entering the summer on a positive note from a health standpoint.  That would be like Arsenal saying "RvP is a great striker and he's healthy now, why would we need another striker?" (Oh wait, they DID say that last summer and how did that work out again?)

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This discussion took place 2 weeks ago but this was as far the conversation went, with some of the blogger's (Mike & Sus) unavailable for this discussion, and there are some areas we didn't get to discuss in much depth as we went off on a Man City tangent! 

I'd therefore like to throw it open to reader's of the blog to give their opinions on the above topic, especially regarding the future of the Premier League. With lots of the big names now favouring Spain, has the financial meltdown meant England's top tier has reached and passed it's peak?

Cheers,

AM