White Hart Reunion

This week is a huge week for the club and could be as important come the end of the season, as it is hectic right now.  Sunday’s game against Bray was huge and we knew we had to win.  It was very important we got the three points especially after Sligo won again.  It was really important we weren’t distracted by the game against Spurs on Thursday because Sunday’s game was more important as far as I’m concerned.

It would be easy for us to lose concentration on the league and even though we’re joint top, some people said we did lose focus.  But I think we’ve been unfortunate in games.  We were unfortunate to go down to nine men against Sligo. We were unfortunate not to beat Pat’s.  And in the game against Sligo when we lost 1-0 in the cup, we should have been up 1-0 before they scored. But coming off this 5-2 victory we can go into the European game full of confidence.

On Sunday’s game, we had a slow a start but we had so many chances to score as the game went on, I thought we could have had seven or eight goals.  But most importantly we showed great character to actually go and win the game after going behind to a very good goal.

I was delighted to score my first goal for Rovers in the game.  It was a lovely moment.  Actually before the game Andy Myler was saying to me “You’re going to score, you’re going to score!” I just put the ball into an area where I thought it would cause problems and luckily it went all the way through and in. The goalkeeper had left so much space in the wall and I just took advantage of that.  It’s nice to see your hard work paying off and a goal is the best reward.

Looking to Thursday’s game, don’t get me wrong it will be great returning to my old club. But it’s just another game that I want to play well in, if selected.  I don’t want to get caught up in the outside stuff about me playing against my former club.  I just want to go out there and help Shamrock Rovers win the game.

I had a great time playing with Tottenham and it was probably the happiest time in my career to date.  Glenn Hoddle gave me my break and the last manager I had was Martin Jol.  He was a very good manager and I learned a lot from him.  The fans were great to me as well at White Hart Lane and some of them still follow me to this day.  It will be great to reunite with them for the night.  The Spurs fans and me really got on.  I had great mates there too like Jermaine Defoe, Ledley King and Tom Huddlestone so it’ll be great to see them again.

I think we have to go in full of confidence and know we are going to get chances.  We had chances against Rubin Kazan and we didn’t take them. We had a penalty and we didn’t score.  Chris Turner had a header and Ronan Finn had two chances.  Hopefully we can cause an upset.  You have to go into a game thinking you can get something out of it and if you don’t think like that, there’s no point going. 

Outside of football, I’m really enjoying life here.  I’m looking forward to this heat wave we’re supposed to be getting soon.  Last Friday we were on Soccer AM doing the crossbar challenge.  That was a good laugh – though I think my commentating skills could be a bit better.  I’m going on TV3 on Monday so I’m looking forward to that. It’s all go here but it’s the best way to be and I’m enjoying it all.