A few days ago we were all suitably delighted that Liam Miller had found a new club, even more so because he was teaming up with Damien Duff no less. Man City puppet affiliate club Melbourne City confirmed that Miller had been brought in under the A-League's rarely used 'National Team Replacement Player rule'.
It turns out that means he's only there for one game (at the moment anyway), and he played it on Sunday morning. Miller started alongside Duff as Melbourne drew 2-2 with Central Coast Mariners. Afterwards, Melbourne coach John van't Schip told The Herald Sun that Miller was brought in as a replacement for Aaron Mooy who was on international duty with Australia.
It's very difficult to make use of that rule. In this case, for us, it was a big opportunity because Liam is a great player, a player with experience, and just got ruled out with Brisbane Roar.
For us it was a great opportunity to get a player in with experience, who is still very fit because he still was doing everything (with Brisbane) until two weeks ago.
Van't Schip added that 'at the moment' Miller's contract was just for one week, however, according to The Age, he later said that a longer deal is possible but it would be difficult to make happen due to the A-League's strict squad rules.
Yes, we will have a talk with him. You could see today he is a good player. I think if you saw him keeping the ball and being patient and giving the team that bit of extra rest when we had the ball. I was very happy with his performance, we will have a talk about what's possible for the coming period.
The Melbourne coach admitted that he didn't know exactly how space could be made for Miller within the rules but suggested that he could bring him in as an injury replacement player, again, presumably on a short term deal.
We will talk about that, we have a few players injured, so that is something we are going to discuss.
So, having said all that, Cork City fans might yet be seeing him at Turner's Cross for the start of the new season.
