The Bosman transfer of James Milner has been widely acknowledged as a shrewd piece of business by Liverpool. Two Premier League medals, 56 international call-ups, a wealth of experience, and an Englishman, all of this obtained for absolute peanuts. Yes, it’s a good deal. Milner is a valuable addition to the Liverpool squad, especially when you look at the dearth of experience created by departures of Gerrard and Carragher in recent years. He can act as an able mentor to a very young squad and more so to Henderson, to help him deal with the added responsibility of donning the armband this season. These were the unanimous underlying thoughts of pundits and fans alike when the deal was sealed.
However, reports suggested that Milner agreed to sign for Liverpool primarily because he was promised his preferred central midfield role and regular game time. He had grown increasingly frustrated with what he perceived as a peripheral role at City. The promises have been fulfilled but the returns have been scant. Milner has been relatively ineffective. He has failed to have any perceivable influence in the games played thus far. One would say that this is too soon to pass a verdict on him. Not really I suppose.
On the face of it, five games into the season does look like a nascent stage in a lengthy campaign. But when we take a look at the teams Liverpool have played already (Stoke, Arsenal, West Ham and Manchester United), we realize that they have already played teams with different flavors. Milner’s performance in all these games has been colorless and obscure. More often, his game has been very predictable. With the pairing of Henderson and Milner, it was always expected that the former would play in a more advanced role while the latter would sit back, shielding the backline and winning the dead balls. This is a role tailor-made for Lucas and not Milner. Lucas plays this role much better because he has been doing primarily just that for years now. We have no other player in the current squad who is better suited for sweeping the midfield and dismantling opponent’s attack than Lucas. Benching him just so that Milner gets his promised game time is a big mistake. Worse still, losing him because of this reason is a bigger mistake.
One can still argue that 5 games is too less a timespan for someone to blend in. But then again, we also need to understand that of all the new arrivals that came in this season, Milner is the most experienced. To be more precise, most Premier League experienced. He is obviously no alien to English football; he has played the entire pre-season campaign and is being played in his preferred position. So is it not reasonable to expect Milner to face the least problems in gelling into the setup? For me he should have hit the ground running from the word go, which sadly is not the case.