Extraordinary Milner - The Verdict

The Wigan match verdict from O'Neill is pretty much all about James Milner today. Not surprising really after his performance last night.

Speaking on the Official Site following our well earnt 3 points in the 2-1 win, O'Neill positively waxes lyrical about Milner.

He uses words like 'extraordinary' to describe his performance and commitment last night and states that he thinks Milly's all round game has gone up '10 fold' since moving into the middle of the park. His goal last night also took him into double figures for the season so it look like we have definitely solved the 'we need a regular goalscorer from midfield' problem that we've suffered from for a few years.

'It was an extraordinary performance by a really, really good player.'

O'Neill was also obvious 'well pleased' with picking up another 3 points and ending our March hoodoo.

'It was important for us to close the gap and we did that tonight.'

O'Neill sort of indicates that the aim from the 3 games we have in hand was realistically 6 odd points, in saying:

'If you'd have said to me last Friday night that we'd come out of the games against Stoke and Wigan with four points, I'd have been delighted.'

Stoke remains disappointing because of the match as opposed to the result really. If 6-7 points was our aim we are well on track for that and have already closed the gap nicely, and of course by the time we've played our 3rd game in hand and have got the 29th fixture this season out the way like most of the league already, we'll still have a game in hand on Liverpool and probably Spurs aswell.

So 6 points from them two would see us leapfrog everyone to 4th place with only Man City to worry about as they've got the same games in hand as us.

Onwards and upwards!

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