'I was so angry in the game at Middlesbrough I was close to tears' - Stephen Ireland on his inner demons

By Oliver Holt in Mirror Football Blog

Published 08:52 12/11/09

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By Oliver Holt in Abu Dhabi

Stephen Ireland is not a straightforward man. We know that. His grannies know that. "I live inside my head quite a lot," he said yesterday.

If the Manchester City midfielder plays badly in a training session, let alone a match, it haunts him for days, he said.

When City threw away a lead to concede a late equaliser to Burnley last weekend, Ireland was devastated. "It stays with me for longer than anyone else," he said.

But if Ireland is complicated and intense, he also shares with Craig Bellamy the honour of being the most articulate and forthright player on the City playing staff.

And even though it has hurt him that City have drawn their last five league matches in succession, when he spoke about the ambitions of the club this season, he chose to emphasise quite how far City have travelled in the last two years.

The richest club in the world is here in the Arabian Gulf for a sunshine break before they return to England and attempt to breathe new life into their bid to smash their way into the Premier League's top four in an Anfield showdown with Liverpool.

And as Ireland sat in a lounge amid the splendour of the seven star Emirates Palace Hotel yesterday, he said that difficult though City's recent blip has been, it did not compare to the agonies the team went through before Mark Hughes began to transform the club.

Ireland said he remembered in particular the agony of the final game of the season before last when City lost 8-1 at Middlesbrough in Sven Goran Eriksson's farewell game in charge.

"I don't blame Sven," Ireland said. "But we were given the impression towards the end of the season that he would not be staying and it all felt really amateurish because we went into the last few games thinking 'it doesn't matter whether we win or lose'.

"I was just so angry in that game at Middlesbrough that I was close to tears. Goals were just flying in. It was like a training game. No one was that bothered.

"It was ridiculous. I was looking around at the other players and thinking 'am I the only one that's upset?'

"After the game, because it was the last match of the season, everyone was shaking hands and saying 'see you after the summer, have a good summer' and I was thinking 'this is bizarre, I don't want to be in these changing rooms.

"I didn't even travel back to Manchester with the players. I just didn't want to be on the same bus as them. My girlfriend picked me up in Middlesbrough and we went home.

"I remember the exact moment the next day, sitting in the garden, with her pregnant, and me saying 'I can't carry on like this, I've got to do something about it for myself and for the club'.

"I went training in Glossop for the whole of the next eight weeks while she was pregnant because I couldn't leave the country and had to be around. I just dedicated the summer to myself and my training."

After a superb season last year, Ireland is recognised now as one of the stars of City's team. The crazy, chaotic days of blaming his hasty departure from an Ireland squad on the fictitious death of first one grandma, then the other, seem an age away.

He has done far more than merely survive the influx of superstars that City's billionaire owners have bankrolled. He has thrived on their arrival. But he admitted he is still pursued by his demons.

"If certain things don't go my way, I really start over-thinking things," Ireland said. "It's just that I take my job so seriously. I love my job and this is where I want to play my football.

"It's just me as a person. I've always been that way. If I have a bad training session or things don't go well, I dwell on it for a few days and I'm inside my head thinking about it. It's because I care so much.

"Even when we drew the game the other day against Burnley, everyone was devastated. Some people hold on to things a lot longer than others and I'm one of them.

"Maybe it's one of my downfalls. The best thing is to get out of it and move on but I seem to think too much into it. It's something I have to get out of my system because if I hold on to things too long, it's not good.

"But the more experience you get the better you become. It's a big stage and we are trying to do something here which is massive so you have to take it seriously."

Ireland made it plain that he was not a fan of Elano, the former City playmaker who was transferred at the end of last season and is still a first choice for the Brazil side that will play England in Qatar on Saturday.

Ireland blamed the influence of Elano for drawing Robinho into a clique that separated him from the rest of the team. He also thought Elano was overrated as a player.

"When Elano arrived, there was all this talk about him," Ireland said. "Him and players like him were getting all the credit but I didn't think they had done enough to earn that credit.

"I think Elano had played 7 or 8 games when he arrived and suddenly everyone was saying 'we haven't seen a player like this in a long time'.

"He took all the praise and publicity and I felt as hard as I was working - even when I was giving 110 per cent - I never got that recognition."

Ireland doesn't seem to mind who he upsets. He does not talk with malice. But he does not disguise his feelings.

When Hughes arrived at City, Ireland was being linked with moves to Bolton and Sunderland. "They're the last places I want my career to be," Ireland said.

Some might call that tactless. Some might call it arrogant. Others might just say that Stephen Ireland knew what he wanted from his football career and went out and got it.

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