With Ireland his status as Richard Dunne’s partner at the heart of the team’s defence is fairly assured at present and the prospect of testing himself against players he normally only sees on TV has been exciting him in recent weeks as Poland and the Euros really started to loom large.
“It’s weird,” he says, “because after Estonia it seemed so far away but now it’s two or three weeks away from meeting up. The excitement is unreal. The hardest thing will be the week training before it, the anticipation of going into a tournament. It will really sink in when we get to Poland. It was so far away but now it’s so close.
“I am watching in detail. You have got Jelavic at Everton and he is scoring goals at the moment. I am watching him to see what he is all about. He has come to the Premier League and done very well.
“And Torres is hitting form. I know that much. We played against him a couple of weeks ago in the FA Cup. He wasn’t bad, like. Everyone is pleased for him. He has worked hard and people have written him off too early. He is showing the form at the moment that Chelsea paid that money for.
“I’m looking forward to it. These are the kind of players you want to play against.”
Keep them quiet and Pearson might well appreciate him a little more next season but a more immediate concern is to repay the faith that Trapattoni has shown since handing him his debut against Nigeria at Craven Cottage less than three years ago.
“He has had a lot of belief in me. I didn’t get a call-up for a long time and you start to ask yourself: ‘Am I going to get back in the squad?’ Fortunately, I played in the friendly and I got back in from there.
“That’s down to him because my club form, when I was at Middlesbrough and Preston, wasn’t great and he could have left me out. But when you have a manager who has faith in you it makes you believe in yourself a bit more.”
He has, to be fair, worked hard for the Italian, taking on board everything that the veteran coach has asked of him and simply being there sometimes when some, Trapattoni felt, got their priorities wrong.
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