Graeme Souness says he hopes James Milner can forgive him for a comment he made about him 18 years while manager of Newcastle United. Souness had been in charge at St James' Park for about a year when he made the decision to sanction a loan move for Milner to go to Aston Villa. He had previously been reluctant to play him during his first season as boss.
He defended the decision, saying 'you won't win the leagues with James Milners'. The midfield has gone on to enjoy an illustrious career, winning three Premier League titles, two FA Cups and the Champions League with both Manchester City and Liverpool.
However, Souness says the comment was not a slur on Milner as he explains the reason for the decision and what he meant by that remark. "I was discussing leadership with Simon Jordan. James Milner was one of those I named as a leader I would want in my dressing room. At Newcastle, I knew him as a young boy," he wrote in his Daily Mail column.
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"He has matured into a professional you can bet is a ten out of ten around the dressing room. He was upset with me many years ago at Newcastle when I said that ‘you won’t win the league with James Milners’ and he took that as me saying he wasn’t good enough
"I was trying to say that you needed men. He was only 19 at the time. I apologised to him for that and I hope he’s forgiven me. You can never have enough James Milners in the dressing room. He makes other players turn up."
The midfielder does not appear to hold any grudges. He was asked about the incident in an interview with FourFourTwo in 2018 and made it clear he has moved on.
“I think it was more like, ‘You don’t win anything with a team of James Milners’. Newcastle was tough – the manager who’d signed me, Bobby Robson, got sacked three games into the season, so a new manager arrived and I ended up going on loan again, to Aston Villa," he said.
"I think the first time I finished a season with the same manager who started it was Martin O’Neill at Villa, probably five seasons into my career. When someone has an opinion, even if it ends up misquoted, people jump on it.
"But as a player you love the chance to shut people up. Any time that you’re criticised, it drives you on and you try to prove people wrong. That’s what I did in that part of my career.
“But I get on with Graeme – there’s no beef. When I won the Premier League title at Manchester City, he was covering the game and he came over to congratulate me."
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