5 Reasons Why Manchester City Must Re-Sign England International James Milner

Manchester City have frittered away scads of time deciding whether or not to re-sign midfielder James Milner, whose contract expires at the end of this season.

So it is understandable that Milner may be tired of proving his value to City and looking to move on.

"The former Aston Villa player has yet to finalise terms and Liverpool believe the offer of regular first-team football could sway Milner to leave the Etihad Stadium for Anfield," wrote Richard Jolly for ESPN FC.

It is an open question whether Milner would walk into the Liverpool XI (I don't think so), but Milner may feel that City's crowded midfield will always leave him begging for scraps of playing time.

That may be true, but City would be making a mistake if they let Milner leave. Here are five reasons why manager Manuel Pellegrini must convince City's decision-makers to get Milner to re-up at City.

Versatility

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It would not be a shock to see Milner play in goal some day.

When Manchester City sustained a full-blown striker injury crisis, they did not move Yaya Toure or Frank Lampard (both prolific scorers) forward.

They moved James Milner forward.

Milner's days as a pseudo-striker against Crystal Palace and others did not yield any goals, but then what did anyone really expect? The real story is that, unlike so many players who balk at playing anything but their favorite position, Milner was willing to try.

"A quick brainstorm reveals that Milner has now played up to seven positions in a Manchester City shirt—in both full-back positions, across the midfield, behind the frontman and now as an old-fashioned No. 9,"wrote Adam Crafton in the Daily Mail recently.

A good man is hard to find, and a man good enough to fake it until he makes it in so many positions on the pitch adds value that statistics do not measure.

Productivity

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Milner does more with the ball at his feet than he gets credit for.

James Milner is certainly not anyone's idea of a scoring machine, but the work he does with the ball at his feet does allow Manchester City's strikers to shine.

As the January transfer window slides toward being shut, Milner has six assists in all competitions. That is tied for second on the club with Samir Nasri and ahead(!) of David Silva.

Milner does not score a ton of goals, but the ones he does score have a tendency to be important ones. His brace against Sheffield Wednesday kept City's ultimately aborted FA Cup run alive long enough to be snuffed out by Middlesbrough.

Apparently no one told Milner that none of his teammates intended to score against Boro, either.

Intelligence

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Nasri knew how crucial Milner's dummy run against Roma was.

Manchester City may not appreciate just how intelligent a footballer James Milner is but even the casual observer can barely miss it.

Writing about that brace against Sheffield Wednesday in the FA Cup, Samuel Luckhurst of the Manchester Evening News wrote: "Although his goals looked simple, Milner's movement complemented the incision of David Silva and Samir Nasri to help City avoid humiliation. An intelligent footballer."

And in perhaps City's biggest win of the season, it was Milner's dummy run down the left wing that freed up Nasri to fire the Exocet into the top corner of Roma's goal and stamp City's ticket to the Champions League knockout round.

City can ill afford to lose a brilliant football player like Milner. This is particularly true if City continue to employ Eliaquim Mangala, whose football intelligence quotient is lower than the grade point average of the Delta house.

Grit

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It is a good thing Milner keeps himself in such great shape given the way he throws his body around.

James Milner's gritty determination to see his job out leads to some unfair characterizations of him as one-dimensional.

Milner, per my Bleacher Report colleague Rob Pollard, "is very often cast as a workhorse, a player capable of grit and tenacity, but one who falls short technically."

Here's the thing, though: Since when is it a bad thing to work insanely hard, keep oneself in immaculate physical condition and tirelessly do what is asked?

Looking around the City roster (hey there, Samir Nasri, Stevan Jovetic and Jesus Navas, for starters), blind ambition is in fairly short supply at the Etihad these days. Losing Milner would not help that at all.

Blood

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Milner's nationality makes him less a luxury and more a necessity for City.

James Milner's status as an England international does more for City than give Joe Hart someone to talk to when their national team goes to San Marino.

"(Milner's) valuable to Manchester City for a variety of reasons, one of the most important being he's homegrown," wrote David Mooney for ESPN FC this month.

"That's crucial for the Blues when it comes to naming a Premier League and a Champions League squad. It's even more vital, given City's restrictions on European places this season," Mooney continued.

Granted, City's acquisition of Frank Lampard temporarily alleviated the pinch that UEFA's home-grown requirement threatened to put on City's Champions League dreams. Having Lampard on hand saved City from using his home-grown slot on a much lesser player.

But Lampard is not going to be in Manchester much longer, is he?

And if City announced that "we re-signed Milner solely and only because he is English," would anyone really think that was a bad decision?