February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
To be fair to Miller, the reaction of some English journalists to his performance in Turkey last Wednesday night was slightly over the top.
“Ferguson’s antennae will have picked up on how ineffective Miller was in the void between midfield and attack,” the Guardian wrote. “Lightweight and seemingly incapable of asserting himself, it is becoming increasingly difficult to understand why Ferguson picked out the Irishman earlier this year.”
“Miller still looks jumpy,” opined the Daily Telegraph, “and is too often brushed aside.”
Nobody is disputing that the Ballincollig man was poor against Fenerbahce, but he was hardly alone in that. It also seems unfair to judge a player on his display in a weakened first XI going through the motions in a meaningless fixture away from home in Europe. Visiting Istanbul under those circumstances couldn’t be described as the ideal scenario for a player wanting to showcase his creative talents.
In his defense, there have been other mitigating factors hindering his progress too. A groin operation in the summer cost him most of preseason. It’s one of the oldest saws in the sport that missing the most crucial portion of the buildup invariably has a negative impact on any player’s season. He recovered from that setback to play some role in five of United’s first seven matches before a calf strain forced him out of the reckoning. That he’s struggled to get back in since is hardly surprising either.
He’s competing for a starting spot on the third best team in England, and, understandably given the intensity of their schedule and the caliber of their squad (some guy called Keane, apparently in the middle, hasn’t got a run in his favored central midfield role yet). Miller may or may not be good enough to cut it at United, but surely he deserves a little more time before the 23-year-old is written off as a beaten docket.
It’s worth remembering, too, that as he ships a few knocks in England, Miller is still highly thought of in Glasgow. Sure, the Celtic faithful resent his departure, but the Scottish journalists are constantly lamenting the way the club were too casual about improving his contract, thereby allowing United to nip in. The moral of all the newspaper stories up there is that Martin O’Neill let a good one slip away for naught.
“I think Martin felt that Liam was going to be a major player, certainly for the next two or three years, and possibly then he might have decided to go,” Tommy Burns said last week about the Miller transfer. “To go as quickly as he did was a big disappointment for everyone at the club because he had done so well in that 18-month period. Everyone was looking forward to him maintaining that, but then he was suddenly gone. It was a huge disappointment for the club and for Martin. I think he gave Liam his opportunity, he stuck by him through a long-term injury problem, so it was a big disappointment for the manager personally.”
It doesn’t help his cause that Miller’s development has been distorted by hype from the moment he started making a contribution for Celtic. The most graphic illustration was the speed with which he was burdened with a thousand unfortunate Roy Keane comparisons. Tagging him as the long-term replacement for his fellow Corkonian was utterly misguided, given that Keane is effectively irreplaceable and Miller is a completely different type of player.
“Liam is one of the best young talents I’ve ever seen,” Henrik Larsson said at the height of the hysteria just over 12 months ago. “Right from his first game he looked like he had been playing at the highest level forever. It’s impossible to say how far he can go in the game.”
The truth is he probably isn’t as good as he was made out to be by a media crazed at the prospect of a Celtic/Ireland good news story, or as bad as some sections of the English press (and the bazillion United Web sites) are maintaining in the last few days. Two weeks ago, he was being lauded for his performance in the 1-0 win over an admittedly raw Arsenal selection. Now he’s being slaughtered for struggling in as weak a United XI as has taken the field in a competitive game in a long time.
As usual, there is an absence of perspective. Ferguson selected Miller up because he was available on a free transfer, had shown real promise over a limited time, and represented little financial risk. If he makes it at United, the