Football
Richard Jolly, ESPN.com writer 9y

James Milner waiting on Manchester City over new deal

James Milner has said Manchester City need to come up with an improved offer to persuade him to stay at the Etihad Stadium.

The versatile England international is out of contract in the summer and will be allowed to discuss a free-transfer move to a foreign club from the start of 2015.

But the 28-year-old has said he wants to stay at City and manager Manuel Pellegrini is confident the club will keep the former Leeds, Newcastle and Aston Villa midfielder.

And Milner said: "I hope it will be sorted. We're still in talks, I'm waiting for the club to come back and hopefully they will soon. But the main thing is to concentrate on football, there are so many games coming up.

"If I'm not doing my job on the field because of off field stuff then that's no good. So I let others take care of it and I just concentrate on football."

Milner had refused to sign a new deal at the end of last season after he had not started as many games as he would have liked. But he has already played 25 times this season and has started City's last two games as an emergency striker after the specialist forwards were all injured.

"It was different playing up front. I enjoyed it," he said, before adding he has played in every outfield position. "I played centre-back in a preseason friendly. I nearly went in goal once when Joe [Hart] got injured but he played on in the end."

City have equalled a club record by winning their last nine games and have reduced the gap at the top of the table to three points.

Milner takes comfort from their track record of coming from behind to clinch the title in two previous seasons.

He added: "Experience of winning it always helps. It's nice to know what it's all about, to know you've got over the line. You know what went wrong last time, you try to put it right. Winning titles on the last day means we know how long it is. People were writing us off, saying Chelsea had it won already. They are a strong team and we will fight them all the way for it."

City failed to retain the title after winning it in 2012-13 and Milner is hoping there will not be a repeat.

He said: "The fact not many teams have done it shows how difficult it is to win back-to-back. Hopefully we are making a better fist of it with the fact we're still in there."

Pellegrini argues that December is a pivotal part of the season and Milner agreed, saying: "The league table often looks different coming out of Christmas. It can make such a big difference, momentum is such a big word around this time of year."

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