Danny Mills - Under The Cosh

parmoboy

parmoboy

Well-known member
I've been watching a lot of episodes of 'Under The Cosh' recently and have just watched the Danny Mills episode.

He actually comes across as quite an unlikable guy but the story he told regarding why he didn't sign for Boro on a permanent deal was interesting.

We only signed him on loan because it wa close to deadline day and had promised to sign him on a permanent deal for £1.5m in January. Once it had gotten to January Keith Lamb told him that we would wait until the end of the season and try to sign him on a free, as Leeds looked likely to be relegated and would have been desperate to offload him.

Seems mad looking back on it now. £1.5m would have been a steal. I always did find it strange that he didn't sign permanently for us, following a successful loan spell.

Starts talking about it around the 37th minute mark.

 
He banged on about this in his interview with Drury recently. Made out that Keith Lamb was a pain. But he was trying to do the right thing by Boro I reckon.

If I remember correctly, winning the cup with us was probs Mills greatest achievement. You'd think we was doing us a favour the way he talks.
 
I still recall the guffaws on FMTTM when he was wanting £40k p/w and claimed that the reason he wanted £10k more than the Boro offer was that he likes to give lots of money to charity.
 
If you think back to that season we really finished the season poorly. We coasted after the Cup Final to get absolutely pasted in the final game away at Portsmouth. I remember as fans being infuriated by the way Yakuba tore us and in particular Danny apart at Fratton Park. The club and McClaren were non too pleased either. I think the decision was made to go for a big rebuild and players like Mills and Greening exited and ultimately Juninho also whilst over the next few months Hasselbaink, Yakubu and then Viduka came in.

Plus, maybe just maybe Danny Mills was unpopular as a personality about the club. I saw him once addressing kids etc for MFC in the Community and well.. he came across just like he did on the pitch. Abrasive might be the best word.
 
Sounds like the club didn't fancy paying his wages to me.

The money Leeds were throwing around he'll have been overpaid despite what he said (as proven by the fact no other club was willing to match them either).

Was decent for us, but did nowt after. Whereas we finished 7th, so not exactly one that got away.
 
edinboro said:
He banged on about this in his interview with Drury recently. Made out that Keith Lamb was a pain. But he was trying to do the right thing by Boro I reckon.

If I remember correctly, winning the cup with us was probs Mills greatest achievement. You'd think we was doing us a favour the way he talks.
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Yeah, he does come across as arrogant.

Mills said that Keith Lamb had told him they hadn't agreed on a fee with Leeds. Unless Leeds were wanting more than the £1.5m, and Mills is just conveniently chose to omit that from the story.
 
Seen interviews with him a few times, never had a good word to say about Boro. To say he has a huge stick up his ar*e is an understatement - is more of a mature tree.

Comes across as a bitter bellend. Always thought Lamb did the right thing waiting to see if he could be signed on the cheap......but Mills thought he was far too good for that.
 
I think it was just a personality clash to be honest.

He's a pro whose been promised something that didn't come to fruition, probably felt let down, probably felt Boro were being 'skintflints' trying to save that money. Maybe being a bit self-centred in his approach.

The club, clearly didn't respect the original gentlemans agreement with him, then kept him in the dark too much.

He isn't the first or the last ex-player to be a bit annoyed at how we do business.

Is he a bit of a bell? Maybe a bit, but not an outrageous one, it was a shame as he was a key part of that strong defence. 3 england internationals in our defence, will that ever happen again? Propped up with the best australa-asian goalkeeper ever, a cult French B leftback and one of the top ten CDMs ever to play in the premier league. Will we see days like that again? and will fans appreciate it next time we get something like that?
 
BoroMart said:
I think it was just a personality clash to be honest.

He's a pro whose been promised something that didn't come to fruition, probably felt let down, probably felt Boro were being 'skintflints' trying to save that money. Maybe being a bit self-centred in his approach.

The club, clearly didn't respect the original gentlemans agreement with him, then kept him in the dark too much.

He isn't the first or the last ex-player to be a bit annoyed at how we do business.

Is he a bit of a bell? Maybe a bit, but not an outrageous one, it was a shame as he was a key part of that strong defence. 3 england internationals in our defence, will that ever happen again? Propped up with the best australa-asian goalkeeper ever, a cult French B leftback and one of the top ten CDMs ever to play in the premier league. Will we see days like that again? and will fans appreciate it next time we get something like that?
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Not the first time a gentlemens agreement has been reneged by the club. I dont mind mills at all he always comes across as an intelligent pundit
 
Glover_elbow said:
Not the first time a gentlemens agreement has been reneged by the club. I dont mind mills at all he always comes across as an intelligent pundit
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Schwarzer always springs to mind. Our greatest ever keeper (please nobody says Pears, if you do go back and watch the highlights of his one and only season in top flight football where he was an absolute liability) a long standing servant, high profile, played in multiple cup finals, yet got a letter 4 months after leaving saying thanks for your service, that's it. Schwarzer should be lorded by the club, celebrated, but it seems the board didn't like him. Mills and Schwarzer are both fairly eloquent and intelligent and not a soft touch, maybe they just expected a bit more respect than being treated as commodities by the club. I kinda get why Mills didn't feel comfortable playing against Leeds, with his family still living there at the time he would have been playingfor us and trying to relegate them. This was in the days when loan players could play against parent clubs. The club obviously took umbrage at that.
 
BoroMart said:
I think it was just a personality clash to be honest.

He's a pro whose been promised something that didn't come to fruition, probably felt let down, probably felt Boro were being 'skintflints' trying to save that money. Maybe being a bit self-centred in his approach.

The club, clearly didn't respect the original gentlemans agreement with him, then kept him in the dark too much.

He isn't the first or the last ex-player to be a bit annoyed at how we do business.

Is he a bit of a bell? Maybe a bit, but not an outrageous one, it was a shame as he was a key part of that strong defence. 3 england internationals in our defence, will that ever happen again? Propped up with the best australa-asian goalkeeper ever, a cult French B leftback and one of the top ten CDMs ever to play in the premier league. Will we see days like that again? and will fans appreciate it next time we get something like that?
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Unpopular opinion but McLaren underachieved with the talent he had at his disposal

He had viduka jfh and yakubu as striker choices too
 
We got reiziger instead. Who turned out to be dog turd. Barca and the Netherlands. Who would have think.
Then we ended up with parnaby.
Mcmahon started really well but got some terrible injuries that set him back.

So not signing Mills was a poor decision.

We seem to make a few in that position. Young for hoyte. Yikes. Karanka sacking off that decent lad we had on loan for some bizarre reason. Then he got Nsue playing there who was great. And we sacked him off for a dog turd Spaniard.
Not to mention Xavier starting well then getting banned for drugs.
 
Sheriff_John_Bunnell_ret said:
We got reiziger instead. Who turned out to be dog turd. Barca and the Netherlands. Who would have think.
Then we ended up with parnaby.
Mcmahon started really well but got some terrible injuries that set him back.

So not signing Mills was a poor decision.

We seem to make a few in that position. Young for hoyte. Yikes. Karanka sacking off that decent lad we had on loan for some bizarre reason. Then he got Nsue playing there who was great. And we sacked him off for a dog turd Spaniard.
Not to mention Xavier starting well then getting banned for drugs.
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Not signing Mills wasn’t a poor decision. Buying Reiziger was.
 
18MFC76 said:
Agree with that.
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I dont.

You're looking at it in isolation and just looking at the "big names" we had, and not looking at the opposition, not to mention it was his first managerial job where he was still learning how to manage a PL team.

Also look at the quality of the bench / squad as well, as simply looking at the first 11 doesn't tell the full story either.
 
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