How James Milner (and Gareth Barry) could get Fabian Hurzeler the Brighton sack as ‘vendetta’ builds | OneFootball

There are a great many more Gareth Barry truthers out there than one might initially care to assume.

Whether they followed his professional top-flight career from his debut with Aston Villa in May 1998 through to a rather unbecoming last Premier League season with West Brom two decades later, many have come to feel particularly strongly about a player who was allowed to fade from public consciousness.

But the apparent drive for James Milner to break the Premier League appearance record has invigorated them.

That it is Brighton who are alleged to have sacrificed their entire season to make charitable donations to the 40-year-old’s cause only adds to the narrative heft, considering it was the Seagulls who developed Barry for six years before his controversial move to Villa Park.

Fabian Hurzeler has referred to Milner as his “second coach” and “a role model for every person in the world” this season, but his continued use of him has become a talking point.

That was already the case before he was brought on in the 96th minute of a game Brighton were leading 1-0 at home to Everton, who equalised seconds later through Beto in the time added on by a seemingly needless substitution.

More points had been dropped from a winning position the week before at Fulham, when Milner came on at 1-1 of a game the Seagulls would ultimately lose.

While even his biggest detractors would fail to apportion blame to Milner for either goal, there has been a growing sense that these empty, soulless cameos are damaging Brighton.

Andy Naylor, the Brighton correspondent for The Athletic, believes ‘the anti-Hurzeler vendetta/hysteria’ has simply ‘reached such absurd levels that he is apparently more interested in Milner breaking a record than Brighton winning’.

It definitely would be a choice for the relatively unpopular Hurzeler to put one player’s legacy ahead of his club’s fortunes. Brighton have won one of their last 11 games – at home to Burnley almost a month ago – and are missing opportunity after opportunity to stamp their authority on a stodgy mid-table with European qualification on offer.

But the accusations of leaning too much on Milner are not without merit: of all players to feature for more than 300 minutes in the Premier League this season, he has been on the pitch for a higher rate of conceded goals per 90 minutes (3.14) than anyone.

If the intention against Fulham and Everton was simply to see out the results, it was a fundamental failure.

But a handful of minutes across two damaging results has dragged Milner to within a single game of Barry’s record 653 appearances, albeit with a significant gap in terms of actual minutes played.

If Hurzeler plans to equal that record in a quite miserable clash with bitter rivals Crystal Palace next weekend, the demand for him to be sacked will be unavoidably loud. Although Palace do have the perfect chance to do the funniest thing; 44-year-old Barry is currently a free agent.