Milner in the centre hailed ‘sensational’ by manager O’Neill

THE RECORD books show James Milner’s most prolific season with Aston Villa came in 2009-10 although the club’s nearly-but-not-quite campaign proved to be a signal for him to move on.

Milner at 23 won the PFA Young Player of the Year Award after scoring 12 goals and assisting 16 more in 49 appearances for the club.

Villa repeated the previous season’s sixth place finish in the Premier League (and qualified for Europe again), reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup and were runners-up to Man Utd in the League Cup final (Milner scored a fifth minute penalty but United prevailed 2-1).

Milner also collected the fans’ player of the year accolade that season, after he had successfully moved into a central midfield role, playing alongside Stylian (Stan) Petrov.

“I’ve enjoyed it,” he said. “I used to play there a bit when I was younger and obviously played a lot of football out wide since then.

“But I’ve enjoyed it immensely moving into the middle and, having Stan in there, you just seem to get a bit more of the ball and get involved a bit more. I’m still learning the role but enjoying it.”

In March that year, with Villa in contention for a top four finish, manager Martin O’Neill positively drooled about the player after an outstanding second-half performance at Wigan when he fired in a winner on the hour.

“It was an extraordinary performance by a really good player,” said O’Neill. “Since he has stepped into central midfield his game has improved tenfold and he continues to go from strength to strength.

“When you play wide you depend on other people giving you the ball to get into the game but when you have got that determination and energy, you might as well use it in the centre of the field.

“It is something we have been crying out for, a midfielder scoring double figures, and he has been sensational.”

Milner in action for Villa against League One Albion’s Alan Navarro in the FA Cup in 2010

O’Neill walked out on Villa five days before the start of the 2010-11 season and it turned out Milner’s imminent move to Manchester City was the cause. O’Neill later explained that he over-reacted to an about-turn by Villa owner Randy Lerner.

He told the Claret & Blue podcast Lerner had promised to keep Milner and bring in Scott Parker to play alongside him, but within 24 hours the plan was ditched and Milner was sold to City for £26m, with Stephen Ireland going in the opposite direction as a makeweight.

“I have to say I took these things too personally,” said O’Neill. “I brought James into the football club, he’d been out on loan at Villa and done fine but I changed him from wide right to central midfield and he was fantastic for us.”

However, Milner’s rationale for wanting the move was explained in an interview with The Guardian. “Villa came very close to winning a trophy, they had a lot of good players but were just that tiny bit short of getting to the next level,” he said.

“They needed to bring players in but it became clear from Randy Lerner that Villa might have to sell to buy. It made me think City had a better chance of progressing and challenging for trophies. I had a great time at Villa and improved as a player, but City is a club going places very quickly.”

Ever the professional, Milner played for Villa in the opening Premier League match of the season while the finer details of his move were completed and he was even applauded off at the end having been booed at the start of it.

In another edition of the Claret & Blue podcast, Villa’s former chief executive Paul Faulkner said: “I remember that game and 10 or 15 minutes in there was a 50-50 ball and he went in and it felt like all of Villa Park held its breath but he won the ball, got up and ended up scoring as well and went off a few minutes later to a standing ovation.

“There was that sense of ‘What an individual he is’. He did it for Villa and the fans, because he is a decent person.”

Faulkner added: “His attitude, approach and what he brings on the football pitch – and still does – he’s an amazing guy. He’s a straightforward, stand-up guy and absolutely decent.

“What a player, he would do anything for the team.”

Milner’s first spell in Villa’s colours had come in the 2005-06 season after Newcastle manager Graeme Souness had made it plain Milner wasn’t his kind of player.

Former Toon midfielder Nolberto Solano wanted to return to his old club from Villa so Milner’s old Leeds boss David O’Leary, by then in charge at Villa Park, insisted any deal should include Milner on loan in return.

“Nobody at the club wanted Nobby to leave. So, we initially rejected Newcastle’s offer,” O’Leary told the club website. “But Nobby made it very clear that he wanted to leave. There is clearly no point in trying to hold on to a player under those circumstances.

“We were determined to ensure his departure benefited Aston Villa. We held out for a fee that reflects what we paid to Newcastle and also insisted that James Milner was included in the package.

“When you consider what we’ve got in return for a player who wanted to be elsewhere, we’ve definitely got the best of the deal.”

Milner didn’t take long to get on the scoresheet, scoring in a 1-1 draw at home to Spurs. Three days later he scored twice in an 8-3 mauling of Wycombe Wanderers in the League Cup.

But any hopes of Villa finishing in the top half of the Premier League were dashed by them only registering 10 league wins all season. They finished third from bottom of the table and O’Leary was sacked. Shortly after, the chairman, ‘Deadly’ Doug Ellis, ended a 38-year association with Villa by selling the club to Lerner and O’Neill was appointed manager.

It seemed like Newcastle had finally agreed to let Milner join Villa on a permanent basis for £4m but they then pulled out of it at the last minute.

“They accepted a bid for me to go to Aston Villa on deadline day after I’d be on loan there. I went down to Villa, offer had been accepted and then Martin O’Neill said the plug’s been pulled on it,” Milner recalled.

“I started laughing thinking he was joking, he said ‘No, they’ve changed their minds’. So, I went back up to Newcastle, they’d changed their mind.”

O’Neill told the club’s website: “We are disappointed because of the lateness of the decision,”

“Newcastle are entitled to do what they did, but we are disappointed because it came so late in the day.”

Milner duly returned to Newcastle and became a regular but a permanent switch to Villa eventually happened in August 2008, by then the fee was £12m.  He signed a month after Steve Sidwell arrived at Villa Park from Chelsea and was Villa’s eighth summer signing.

O’Neill said: “I am not a kid in a sweet shop but this is an opportunity for us. James has got a great spirit about him and I definitely think his best years are in front of him. It was disappointing two years ago not to sign him when we thought the deal was done and dusted but it is nice to have got it all sorted this time.”

Milner expressed his relief that the deal had finally gone through and believed the club was capable of breaking into the top four. “The top four is tough to get into. But a club will get in there at some point and Villa are in as good as position as any,” he said.

O’Neill’s side had a terrific season up to the beginning of February and, after 25 games, were in third place in the Premier League, on course to qualify for the Champions League. But a dreadful run of form in the final third of the season, with only two wins in 13 matches, saw them drop down to sixth by the end.

As mentioned at the top of this piece, fortunes would change in 2009-10 and Milner in particular was earning plaudits for his performances in central midfield.

At the beginning of the season, he had made his full England debut (going on as a sub for Ashley Young in a 2-2 draw with the Netherlands under Fabio Capello) having played for his country at all age group levels from under 16s up, including a record 46 appearances for the under 21s. Over the next seven years, Milner won 61 caps.

Following a man-of-the-match showing in Villa’s 6-4 Carling Cup semi-final, second-leg victory over Blackburn Rovers, Milner declared: “The next step for this side is to win a trophy. The owner and the manager have done a great job and the club has changed massively since the last time I was here on loan.

“Hopefully we are improving year by year and we can show that in the league but also to get a piece of silverware would be great.”

Milner was hoping he’d have a better League Cup final experience than in 1996 when, as a Leeds United fan, United lost 3-0 and their supporters jeered manager Howard Wilkinson at the end. “I was supporting Leeds. I was only 10 and remember being disappointed,” he said.

Day of reckoning beckoned for talent spotter Mervyn

THE YOUNGEST goalkeeper to appear in a FA Cup final spent 20 months picking out future players for Brighton.

It was one of several different post-playing roles Mervyn Day filled for various clubs.

Day, who at 19 won a winners’ medal with West Ham in 1975, was Albion’s head of scouting and recruitment between November 2012 and the end of the 2013-2014 season under head of football operations David Burke.

At the time, his appointment was another indicator of the gear change taking place at the club as it built on the move to the Amex Stadium and sought to gain promotion from the Championship.

Day said in a matchday programme interview: “This club has come such a long way in such a short space of time.

“When you think of the debacle of the Goldstone, the wilderness of Gillingham, then Withdean, you only have to get a player through the front door at this wonderful stadium to have a chance of signing them.

“Hopefully, within the next year or so, the new training ground will be up and running and, when you’ve got that as well, you’ve got the perfect opportunity not only to encourage kids to sign but top quality players as well.

“If we are fortunate enough to get ourselves into the Premier League at some point, we’ll be able to attract top, top players.”

It was a case of ‘the goalkeepers union’ that led to him joining the Albion. Day explained he’d been chatting to Andy Beasley, Albion’s goalkeeping coach at the time, who had been a colleague when Day was chief scout at Elland Road. Beasley wondered if he’d like to help coach Albion’s academy goalkeepers but Burke, who he also knew, stepped in and offered something more substantial: the job of scouting and talent identification manager.

He certainly brought a wealth of experience to the task. He had previously been assistant manager to former Albion midfielder Alan Curbishley at Charlton and West Ham; manager and assistant manager at Carlisle United, a scout for Fulham and the FA (when Steve McClaren was England manager) and chief scout at Leeds until Neil Warnock took charge.

In addition to that background, in the days before full-time goalkeeper coaches, Day had worked at Southampton under David Jones, Chris Kamara at Bradford City and John Aldridge at Tranmere Rovers. Then in 1997 Everton came along and he joined Howard Kendall’s backroom team alongside Adrian Heath and Viv Busby. “I was living in Leeds at that time, so distance wasn’t an issue, but it was an interesting trip across the M62 in the winter months,” Day recalled in an October 2021 interview with efcheritagesociety.com.

Brighton made Day redundant at the end of the 2013-14 season following a reshuffle of the recruitment department amid criticism of the quality of signings brought in.

That assessment might have been rather harsh because during his time at the club there was a change in manager (Oscar Garcia taking over from Gus Poyet) and, although the season ended in play-off disappointment, the likes of former Hammer Matthew Upson (who’d played under Day when he was at West Ham) had signed permanently on a free transfer (having been on loan from Stoke City for half the previous season).

The experienced Keith Andrews and Stephen Ward also joined on season-long loan deals and played prominent roles in Garcia’s play-off reaching side.

It was under Day’s watch that the promising young goalkeeper Christian Walton was signed after a tip-off from Warren Aspinall. Aspinall told the Argus in 2015: “I went to Plymouth to do a match report. I set off early and took in a youth team game off my own back. He was outstanding, commanding his box. I reported straight back to Gus (Poyet). He told Mervyn Day. He went to see him, Mervyn liked him.”

It wasn’t the first time Day had played a role in securing a goalkeeper for the Albion. As far back as 2003 he had an influence on Ben Roberts’ arrival at the Albion. Manager Steve Coppell revealed: “He is one of three goalkeepers at Charlton and at the moment nearly all the Premiership clubs are very protective about their goalkeepers.

“I have seen him play a number of times, although I certainly haven’t seen him play recently. I spoke with Mervyn Day (Charlton coach) and he says Ben is in good form. It’s a little bit of a chance and it will certainly be a testing start for him, but he is looking forward to the challenge.”

Day was also sniffing around another future Albion ‘keeper when he was chief scout for Bristol City (between 2017 and 2019).  According to Sky Sports commentator Martin Tyler, Mat Ryan was on their radar in the summer of 2017 when he swapped Belgium for England. In an interview with Socceroos.com, Tyler reveals he was asked by City’s ‘head of recruitment’ (thought to be Day) to glean the opinions of Gary and Phil Neville (manager and coach of Valencia at the time) on Ryan and whether he’d be suitable for the English game.

“I got a text saying, ‘Can you find out from the Nevilles whether they rate Mat Ryan’,” Tyler said. “It wasn’t my opinion they were looking for – quite rightly – it was Gary and Phil’s. I was able to do that and both Gary and Phil gave Mat the thumbs up.”

After leaving Brighton, Day moved straight into a similar role with West Brom, where he worked under technical director Terry Burton and first team manager Alan Irvine, but he was only there a year before linking up with the Robins. He has since been first team domestic scout for Glasgow Rangers, although based in his home town of Chelmsford.

Day was born in Chelmsford on 26 June 1955 and educated at Kings Road Primary School, the same school that England and West Ham World Cup hero Geoff Hurst attended. He moved on to the town’s King Edward VI Grammar School and represented Essex Schools at all levels. He joined the Hammers under Ron Greenwood on a youth contract in 1971.

“On my first day as an associate schoolboy I got taken by goalkeeping coach Ernie Gregory into the little gym behind the Upton Park dressing room and he had Martin Peters, an England World Cup winner, firing shots at me,” Day later recounted. “As a 15-year-old that was incredible.

“The bond got even closer when my father died when I was 17. I was an apprentice but Ron signed me as a full pro within a very short space of time to enable me to earn a little more money to help out at home. A short while later he gave me another increase. He was almost a surrogate father to me.”

In the early part of 1971, Day played in the same England Youth side as Alan Boorn, a Coventry City apprentice Pat Saward took from his old club to the Albion in August 1971.

The goalkeeper was just 18 when he made his West Ham United debut, on 27 August 1973, in a 3-3 home draw with Ipswich Town.

He went on to play 33 matches in his first season and only missed one game in the following three.

Tony Hanna, for West Ham Till I Die, wrote: “In only his eleventh game for the Hammers he received a standing ovation from the Liverpool Kop in a 0-1 defeat that could have been a cricket score but for his fine display and, in his next visit to Anfield, he saved a penalty in a 2-2 draw.”

Day recalled: “As a kid, I had no fear, I took to playing in the first team really, really well. At West Ham, the ‘keeper always had lots to do as we were an entertaining team. We had forward-thinking centre-backs in Bobby Moore and Tommy Taylor, and then after Bobby came Kevin Lock.”

In 1974, Day progressed to England’s Under-23 side. He won four caps that year and a fifth in 1975 but it was a golden era for England goalkeepers at the time and he didn’t progress to the full international side, despite being touted for a call-up.

By the time Day won that last cap, he had been voted PFA Young Player of the Year and, at 19, had become the youngest goalkeeper to appear in a FA Cup Final, keeping a clean sheet as West Ham beat Fulham 2-0 at Wembley.

Hanna continued: “At times he was performing heroics in the West Ham goal and he was fast becoming a fans favourite. Tall and agile, he was a brilliant shot stopper and he was playing like a ‘keeper well beyond his years.”

However, by the 1977-78 season Day’s form had tapered off as the Hammers were relegated. “His confidence was so bad he was eventually dropped and he only played 23 games that season,” said Hanna. “There are several theories to what triggered the loss of form, but one thing that did not help the lad was the stick he was getting from the Hammers supporters.

“In hindsight Mervyn said that he was ill prepared for such a tough run of form. The early seasons had gone so well that he had only known the good times and when the bad ones came he struggled to come to terms with the pressure.”

In 1979, West Ham smashed the world record transfer fee for a goalkeeper to bring in Phil Parkes from QPR and Day was sold to Leyton Orient, where he replaced long-standing stopper John Jackson, who later became a goalkeeper coach and youth team coach at Brighton.

Day spent four years at Brisbane Road before moving to Aston Villa as back-up ‘keeper to Nigel Spink. After a falling-out with Villa boss Graham Turner, he switched to Leeds under Eddie Gray and then Billy Bremner. During Bremner’s reign, he had the humiliation of conceding six at Stoke City at the start of the 1985-86 season and, in spite of vowing it wouldn’t happen again, let in seven in the repeat fixture the following season. Amongst his Leeds teammates that day were Andy Ritchie and Ian Baird.

Nevertheless, he ended up playing more games (268) for Leeds than any of his other clubs. He rarely missed a game up to the end of 1989-90, the season when was he was named Player of the Year and collected a Second Division championship medal.

Howard Wilkinson offered him a post as goalkeeping coach for United’s first season back in the elite, having lined up a £1m move for John Lukic from Arsenal. Day had a couple of loans spells – at Luton Town and Sheffield United in 1992 – but was otherwise back-up for Lukic, alongside his coaching duties, until Wilkinson saved Brighton’s future by signing Mark Beeney from the Seagulls.

After eight years at Elland Road, Day moved to the Cumbrian outpost of Carlisle in 1993. When he moved into the manager’s chair at Brunton Park, he not only led them to promotion from the Second Division in 1997, but they also won the (Auto Windscreens Shield) Football League Trophy. United beat Colchester 4-3 on penalties at Wembley after a goalless draw; one of the scorers being the aforementioned Warren Aspinall, later of Brighton and Radio Sussex.

Day worked under Curbishley at Charlton for eight years between 1998 and 2006, helping the club stabilise in the Premier League.

And, in December 2006, he followed Curbishley as his No.2 to West Ham, where the duo spent almost two years.

It was in 2010 that he returned to Leeds as chief scout, working under technical director Gwyn Williams. United manager Simon Grayson said at the time: “We’re restructuring the scouting department under Gwyn and Mervyn will be both producing match reports and watching our opposition and working on the recruitment of players.

“Merv’s knowledge and experience will prove important to the football club as we look to progress and develop what we are doing.”