MARTIN O’NEILL last night vowed to resist any bids for James Milner as Manchester City prepare to test Aston Villa’s resolve in the summer. The manager claimed the club are under no pressure to sell any of their most valuable assets and believes keeping Milner, who has been in outstanding form this season and is certain to go to the World Cup finals with England, is crucial if Villa are to continue to progress.
City’s interest in him has added to the growing uncertainty at Villa Park in the wake of O’Neill suggesting this month that he would consider his own position in the summer. Manchester United have also been monitoring the midfielder after being impressed by his progress this season.
O’Neill, however, has no intention of allowing Milner to leave without a fight.
“It would be very, very important to keep him,” he said. “I don’t think it’s in the interest of Aston Villa football club to try and sell our players.
“I would like to keep players as long as possible; some others you have to let go. (But) that’s not the case with the players we have here. No one here has asked to leave the football club and the progress we have made here this season suggests that, not only themselves, but the club is going in the right direction.”
O’Neill was unable to keep Gareth Barry last summer, when a long-running transfer saga involving the former Villa captain ended with him joining Manchester City rather than Liverpool.
The Villa manager believes, however, the circumstances are very different with Milner. “Gareth Barry wanted to go for a year and a bit. Now, somewhere along the line, if a player wants to go, then you maybe have to decide that’s the time.
“He only had one year left on his contract and, to be fair to Gareth Barry, he had given his years here so I’m not knocking that. If anybody at the football club at the time had earned the right to say, ‘I wouldn’t mind going’ – I think Gareth Barry had done. (But) James Milner has not asked (to leave).
“We haven’t had the chance to sit down (with him to discuss a new contract). I said I would leave it to the summer. Not just James – but a host of people who have got two years left on their contracts.”
O’Neill claimed City have yet to make any contact with Villa regarding Milner but accepted the absence of an official approach carries little significance in an era when transfer market rules have changed.
“It used to be manager to manager years ago,” he said. “Wasn’t David Moyes’s annoyance with Mark Hughes (over Joleon Lescott’s transfer from Everton to Manchester City) that he never had a call in that time?”
O’Neill dismissed a report suggesting he was going to quit the club at the end of the season and take a break from football.
Villa head to struggling Hull City tonight for a match they must win to keep alive their hopes of finishing fourth. “There is no room for error. For us to have any chance at all we would have to win the last four matches. That’s asking a lot, but we’re going in with that mentality,” said O’Neill.
Guardian Service
