James Milner

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• Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (numbers), there should be a non-breaking space -   between a number and the unit of measurement. For example, instead of 20 yards, use 20 yards, which when you are editing the page, should look like: 20 yards.<ref name="nbsp">See footnote</ref>
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• Please ensure that the article has gone through a thorough copyediting so that it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work. See also User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a.^[?]

You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, DTGardner 20:59, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Trying to give this the final push to FA standard. So please tell me anything that is wrong with the article however minor. This article is also currently having an A-class review Buc 17:51, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from The Rambling Man (talk · contribs)

• Don't think "He was a season ticket holder at Leeds United before becoming a ball boy at the club." is lead-worthy.
  • Re-phared Buc 09:05, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • The way it's phrased now, it's not lead-worthy. I think the idea is to show he's a long-time Leeds fan? Chensiyuan 01:06, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• "He has also had loan spells with Swindon Town and Aston Villa before establishing himself in the Newcastle first team and he has now made over a hundred appearances for them. " - this "also" clause doesn't flow easily from the previous sentence.
• Instead of 2002–2004, use 2002–04.
  • Confusion might arise, given wiki articles on football seasons e.g. 2002-03. Chensiyuan 01:11, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

    Nah, not in the infobox it wouldn't... The Rambling Man 07:47, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

    • Ok, didn't know you were referring to infobox. Chensiyuan 13:28, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• "...asked a parent who he was." - overly detailed I think here.
• "...a prestigious tournament..." - define prestigious here. Doubt it was on a par with the FA Cup.
• "...first class student ..." - PoV.
• "...and the former even became a ball boy .." - is that his dad you're talking about? Confused.
• "...cross-country champion..." - context - of the world? Of Leeds?
•  Not done Disambiguate Westbrook.
  • It's wikilinked to a disambiguation page. You should link it to the appropriate Westbrook. The Rambling Man 12:10, 14 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • If that's not what you wanted I need more information. Buc 21:32, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Avoid "didn't" - did not.
• "He played in the 2002 Under-17 Nationwide summer tournament against Italy, Czech Republic and Brazil. He helped England win the tournament with a goal against Brazil.[5]" - prose, flow these sentences and consider wikilinking the teams.
• "at the age of 16 years and 309 days old." - spot the redundant word. P.S. It's "old"!
• "...impressive goal..." - PoV unless you can cite a ref saying it was impressive.
• "Tottenham Hotspur, Aston Villa and Everton all expressed an interest in him,[6] but he rejected a move to Tottenham.[12]" - so he didn't reject a move to the others? Confusing sentence.
  • Other than the mention in the ESPN article I can't find anything eles about Aston Villa's and Everton's interest in him. So maybe I should remove it. Buc 09:34, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• "Leeds insisted that he would not be sold and Milner was not informed that the team had any plans sell him." - was or wasn't informed? Confused again.
  • wasn't but I said was not because you're not ment to use apostrophes. Buc 09:08, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • No, you've missed my point - the "Leeds insisted that he would not be sold" and "Milner was not informed that the team had any plans to sell him" don't flow well - he wasn't informed that they weren't going to sell him? It's confusing to read the two together. The Rambling Man 09:23, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• "But financial problems..." - don't start sentences like this.
• "Newcastle United introduced Milner during..." - introduced him to what? Do you mean he made his first appearance? If so, say that.
• "He said that being associated with people like Shearer taught him how to deal with the media."[2] " - there seems to be a missing or extra ".
• "In September he made his début in European competition, when Newcastle played Israel's Bnei Sakhnin in the UEFA Cup. He scored his first competitive goal for the club against West Bromwich Albion in a 3–1 win, after coming on as a substitute for Patrick Kluivert.[15]" - the flow of these two sentences isn't right. It's confusing, one minute the UEFA Cup and next it's a league match...
• "However, he was frustrated at not being used as a starter for most of the season." - cite it.
• I know he's a current player but the article really has a recent bias - several hundred words to cover just the last season or so...
  • I guess last season was more eventful. Buc 21:37, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

    I suppose that's going to be a problem then, recentism is bad. The Rambling Man 07:48, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Not really bad if they is more say about recent seasons. Buc 08:25, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• "...at the 11th hour..." - non-encyclopaedic.
• "The recall of Milner to Newcastle at the start of the 2006–07 season was generally received positively by Newcastle.[28]" - don't get it. By the city of Newcastle? the club? the supporters? Needs clarification.
• "Milner has a good discipline record, having never been sent off and booked 15 times in his career.[44]" - grammar.
• "Sky Sports.com gave him an overall rating of 6.5 out of 10.[47]" - for what? Sounds like he's just above average then...?
• En-dash in the appearances table.
• Premiership or Premier League? Be consistent.
• team–mate or teammate etc... be consistent.
• Off the pitch section is just a collection of trivia sentences.
  • I second that, most of the content is not very meaningful (in an encylopedic sense). Chensiyuan 23:29, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ok what do you want me to do. Remove it or add to it? Because I think it's important to be there to give you idea of his personality but I really can't find anything to help me write it. Buc 08:47, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• "He also owns a PlayStation, a BMW X5, 2 dogs Canaan hound." - grammar.
• Are five profile links really necessary in the External links section?

Hope the comments help. The Rambling Man 18:44, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Need a space between two and Canaan.
• Order citations numerically. The Rambling Man 12:13, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• • They are arin't they? In fact in does that automatically. Buc 21:32, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Dweller (talk · contribs)

General comment - looking good - nice work. In terms of the structure, I think you've got it right. The "Off the pitch" title is a little informal for my liking, but that's up to you. Beware of POV, or apparent POV. It's easy to fall into that trap in an article you've heavily involved in. Check this out "He displays maturity beyond that expected from someone of his age." Try reading the article for every praiseworthy comment and checking that you have a source that proves it. I'll be back. --Dweller 19:20, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• • FYI, FA Gilberto Silva uses "outside football". Chensiyuan 23:25, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Sir-Nobby (talk · contribs)

I can't really add much more that hasn't been covered by RM.

• Image:James Milner 17.JPG looks like it might not have the right licensing going by this (although I uploaded it I didn't know at the time that the current licensing isn't accepted). You could try to persuade the author to change the licensing on flickr so it is acceptable on here. I think RM did the same for Image:Bobby Robson Cropped.jpg
• I may be scraping the barrel already here, but he's only 21, which might be a stumbling block because he's got so much of his career still ahead of him and thus far hasn't really done anything that notable. I don't know if that would prevent the article from reaching FA.
  • No it won't. I've already asked Raul about this. Buc 21:12, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Some parts of the article go into too much detail for my liking. In particular his potential move to Villa is too detailed and could be trimmed down quite a bit. Otherwise you're risking boring readers.
  • I second that, as was mentioned in the last PR. Chensiyuan 23:27, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've already trimmed it once when as Chensiyuan said it was mentioned in the last PR. Buc 08:43, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Off the pitch section needs improved a lot... "He displays maturity beyond that expected from someone of his age" - POV? Most footballers aren't controversial, I would remove that sentence and replace it with something like "he rarely gets into on-pitch confrontations,[citation]" and does this relate to his attitude off pitch. How have interviewers described his personality? Has he been involved in any charity work? Does he have any notable interests?

Hopefully some of my comments will be useful. Sir-Nobby 19:47, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• • Not much I can do here. I really can't find anything to add to it. It did used to have more but I was told to remove it because it wasn't encyclopedia worthy. Buc 08:41, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Oldelpaso

A few things which haven't yet been mentioned:

• He never drinks alcohol. contradicted by He rarely drinks or goes out at night.
• Milner has always expressed praise for his teammates and managers - seems POV and impossible to prove.
• His work ethic in training has been compared to that of Frank Lampard's. - needs context. Does this imply a good work ethic or idleness?
• His first goal of the season, in Newcastle's 2–2 draw with Manchester United on 1 January 2007, described as "stunning" - by whom?
  • See ref Buc 08:29, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• The club generally received recall of Milner to Newcastle at the start of the 2006–07 season positively. The reference mentions Roeder and Solano's opinions. "Generally positive" is something of a leap from this. Also needs rewriting for grammatical reasons.

Hope this helps. Oldelpaso 18:47, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Ok I've addressed to most of the pionts raised. And I've replied to all the rest. Anyone got anymore to add? Buc 11:59, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm still uncomfortable with the section I discussed above, yes, its title, but worse, most of the content is very trivial. It's more of an "In or not in the press" section. The nickname needs some explanation, perhaps in the footnote. And the proving a positive by not showing a negative is dubious, re not appearing in the press for bad reasons. You'd be better off finding a quote about him being a good boy, if such a quote exists. --Dweller 12:16, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]