EPL NEWS: James Milner to finally join Manchester City within the next 24 hours
The transfer deal for Aston Villa midfielder James Milner is expected to be completed within the next 24 hours. Quite recently, Milner was on international duty when England played against Hungary at Wembley on Wednesday. The midfielder has however returned and a deal is to be inked very soon.
Following Martin O Neill’s resignation from Aston Villa, the midlands club is finding it very hard to retain its key players. Recently, Tottenham Hotspurs have shown some heavy interest in winger Ashley Young which has led to Villa arranging a meeting with Young’s agents. The winger still has two years left in his contract with Aston Villa and is one of the highest paid players in the club, earning 60,000 pounds per week. Young was impressive in the friendly against Hungary where he was responsible for setting up both the goals for Captain Steven Gerrard.
Aston Villa would want to hold on to the services of the 25-year-old and hope to sign a long term contract with England international. This could only happen if there are reasonable wage increases and worthy assurances for the future. Aston Villa owner Randy Lerner aims to straighten up the finances of Villa and try bringing the expenses and earnings to a balancing scenario. Manchester City has agreed to a 20 million plus fee for James Milner and Villa would be expecting a similar amount for Young if they fail to convince the winger to stay put.
Stephan Ireland is expected to move in another direction as he is part of Milner’s deal. City will pay the transfer fee of 20 million pounds plus Stephan Ireland to get the services of James Milner through which the club will make a reasonable profit. Milner joined Villa on a 12 million pound fee two years ago. However, all the funds will not be available to the new manager for player transfers, as Lerner confirmed a few weeks back. This was the major reason behind Martin O Neill’s resignation from the manager’s post on Monday which pushed the club into a mini crisis. The new season is set to start from tomorrow and Aston Villa is without a first team manager.
The differences between the owner and manager led to O Neil resigning from the post. While talking to the press, the club owner stated that he would like to shift the focus from O Neill’s resignation to caretaker boss Kevin MacDonald. Lerner added that he would be supporting Macdonald over the situation with Manchester City and James Milner. Lerner confirmed that the reason behind O Neill exit was a conflict of opinion as both of them had different views on how to take the club forward. Lerner however refused to give further details regarding the issue and wanted to shift the focus on the coming games and the recruitment of a recognizable long term manager.
MacDonald may well stay longer than expected as Villa looks to be in no hurry to sign a new coach. Many high profile managers have applied for the post but Villa will take time to find the right man for the job. Sven-Goran Eriksson has become the number one favourite for the job, although there is yet to be any contact between the club and the former England coach. Lerner has shown a lot of confidence in the reserves coach and therefore refuses to make an urgent appointment.
MacDonald is expected to therefore be in charge for the English Premier League opener against West Ham United at home and may well take the team into the Europa league clash against Rapid Vienna due next week. Without James Milner and Ashley Young in the Villa squad and the increasing competition in the premier league, Aston Villa would need a lot of effort to hang on to their number 6 spot.
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