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Mark Milligan

Pasquali

Pasquali

Administrator
Joined
Oct 17, 2024
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Mark Milligan always seemed to do a solid job for the Socceroos. He brought defensive stability, composure, and rarely looked out of place, yet his club career was never especially impressive. Although Jedinak was the better player, you’d almost think they were worlds apart in ability if you judged them purely on club history, especially with Jedinak having played in the EPL. Why did he never get a decent transfer?
 
That's an interesting comparison. I would argue that Milligan actually was the better player technically, however Jedinak certainly had the better "presence" on the pitch and achieved a higher platform than he otherwise would have, and therefore his overshadowed Milligan's career.

I also wonder if this will also hinder Milligan in his coaching career as the man management aspect of coaching seems to be where the good and great coaches are differentiated.
 
Didn’t Milligan come incredibly close to transferring to Crystal Palace only for Melbourne Victory to block it or something?
It was 2013
 
Pasquali said:
L94kYzk.png

Mark Milligan always seemed to do a solid job for the Socceroos. He brought defensive stability, composure, and rarely looked out of place, yet his club career was never especially impressive. Although Jedinak was the better player, you’d almost think they were worlds apart in ability if you judged them purely on club history, especially with Jedinak having played in the EPL. Why do you think he never got a decent transfer?
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@scout_aussie would be curious on your thoughts on why milligan never made it overseas

my guess is he wasn't an attractive product to develop and sell because he didn't get regular football early enough. His first season where he is playing week in week out is 2009 for Shanghai and it is hard to transfer out of china since they were league that were rich compared to their level of quality. So you are really only buying him if you think he is good enough for a top club from day one which he probably wasn't. By the time he is a regular and standout in the a league he is u28 which is told old to tempt european clubs (though he did seem to have a good season at hibs as a u35, suggesting he could have played at a higher level in his prime with better club choices)

@Benjamin once said that he would be good enough to play for the championship. I definitely think with a different career path and regular early football he probably has a career as good as jedis or perhaps better. I think he was one of the many victims of the "missing generation" where you had a year off any football in the league, and then when the a league starts there is just over half as many spots meaning a lot of youngsters are getting squeezed out and not getting regular football at a crucial development phase. There was also no u20s or underage teams back then
 
He shouldn't have walked on on Metz when they wanted him to play at right back in a trial game.
 
Milligan was terrible for Australia up until the 2015 Asian Cup. It was then that he took a leading role and his fill in at right back late in the final is one of the toughest performances I've seen. The stuff of legend. He was very patchy for Australia in the years building up and got a game against Chile and then injured.

I think the issue was the previous generation of Grella, Culina, Valeri and Skoko were tough acts to follow. He was slow and didn't have the flair and intelligence we were used to. Remember it was his ball loss that led to Syria leading in Sydney. With so much experience, he had to be held to a higher standard. I think he was really good at centre back in 2018 and had a decent Confederations Cup.

It's interesting to note that his move back to MV put him in Ange's eye. In turn he surprisingly wasn't involved in the calamity of the Oman 2:2 draw nor the 6:0 France and Brazil drubbings putting him in better stead over players like Holland. He established himself in the final 3 2014 qualifiers and then wasn't involved as Holger crashed and burned.

Ange revitalised him and you can see he had a much more consistent run of games in both positions. BVM also bought into him. Arnold captained him at the Asian Cup and he was a good leader but the frustrations of the tactics started to wear thin on people. Too slow and possession based with no end product.

www.transfermarkt.com

Mark Milligan - National team

This is the national team page of Karriereende player Mark Milligan. This page contains a statistic about the player's national team career.
www.transfermarkt.com www.transfermarkt.com
 
Pasquali said:
L94kYzk.png

Mark Milligan always seemed to do a solid job for the Socceroos. He brought defensive stability, composure, and rarely looked out of place, yet his club career was never especially impressive. Although Jedinak was the better player, you’d almost think they were worlds apart in ability if you judged them purely on club history, especially with Jedinak having played in the EPL. Why did he never get a decent transfer?
Click to expand...
Deserved a better club career. Gun player.
 
When your not at the standard or noticed when young hard to get a better club career whilst younger ones take the spots or eye of TD’s and scouts Quicky.
He done the best later on he could do.
 
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