TRANSFER NEWS:AS SEAN St Ledger edged a little closer to a new start at Portman Road and Robbie Keane's proposed loan transfer move from LA Galaxy to Aston Villa continued to be stalled, one of Ireland's less established players insists he has always seen staying put at club level as the basis for progress on the international front.
Aston Villa manager Alex McLeish says making it to Euro 2012 remains a major ambition for Ciaran Clark. But after Clark’s attempt to land the role of the Republic of Ireland’s next left-back didn’t quite come off early last year, faltering progress at club level appears to have left the 22- year-old well down the pecking order for seats on the place to Poland.
Having featured in Villa’s last five outings, though, his determination to make the breakthrough at the club he joined more than a decade ago might be starting to look like the right one again.
The quality of some of his recent performances, mostly in central midfield, have served as timely reminders of what Ireland manager Giovanni Trapattoni first saw in him when Richard Dunne helped to facilitate a switch in international allegiance from England a couple of years back.
“I didn’t think about going out on loan,” he says. “I never really thought about it at all to be honest. I wanted to stay and train hard and just wait for my chance. That’s what you’ve got to do. Keep working and pressing your claims for a place. Luckily that came and I’ve been picked to play and I’m in the team at the moment.”
Clark has been playing of late with what McLeish describes as a “deep-lying calf problem”.
“But when a young player has got the momentum he’s got, you feel more like keeping it going. He wants to play in the Euros and he’s a great kid who gets wired in, in training, just the same as he does on a Saturday,” added McLeish.
It’s a level of desire that might just get Clark back into the reckoning for Trapattoni’s squad. The Italian, who talks up Kevin Foley’s versatility on the right hand side, is short of cover at left back and may yet give up on Darron Gibson whose own determination to pass on potential loan moves has frustrated the Italian.
Gibson continues to interest both Everton and, as it happens, Villa, but is considering seeing out the remainder of his contract and then leaving Manchester United as a free agent in the summer. It’s a strategy that could potentially cost him him a place at Euro 2012.
Birmingham City goalkeeper Colin Doyle, whose lack of first team football at St Andrews has seen the likes of David Forde pass him by at international level, has also suggested he will move on when his contract expires in the summer. “It’s all up in the air at the moment but I’m 26 now and want to be playing first-team football,” says the Corkman, whose fine late save from Matt Jarvis on Saturday kept City in the FA Cup.
Meanwhile, St Ledger’s move from Leicester to Ipswich has been agreed by both clubs but Ipswich boss Paul Jewell cautioned: “He has got a few options. Hopefully he will choose us. But we’re waiting on an answer.”
