Ambition drives Carr forward

Soccer/Euro 2004 Qualifier: Emmet Malone talks to Steve Carr ahead of tomorrow's crucial game against Albania

Towards the end of his first spell at Chelsea, English international Graeme Le Saux once declared that he would parachute out of a snake's backside to get away from the club.

Steve Carr may not quite have reached that stage at Spurs yet but it's clear these days that it's not a route he'd take to stay at the club he joined as a schoolboy before signing professional forms just short of 10 years ago.

Asked about his future with (or without) the White Hart Lane outfit at the Ireland team hotel yesterday Carr laughed the issue off with the studied mix of bafflement and disinterest you'd expect from a footballer with two years of his contract left. "I have two years left so . . . " he trailed off almost helplessly.

With his agent having said last month, however, that the defender would be keen to talk to Newcastle, his club chairman confirming at Tottenham's recent a.g.m that they would sell rather than allow another star to see out his contract before departing for free and speculation resurfacing this week about a move to rivals Arsenal it seems safe to assume that the 26-year-old might soon be packing his kit bag.

Still, he made no secret of his disappointment with the way the season just ended went for Spurs and, in particular, the club's failure to qualify for Europe.

"The truth is that we didn't deserve it at the end of the day," he says. "The results in the second half of the season just weren't good enough. We let ourselves down and we let the club down. It has to be a lot better next season."

Whether he will be still there to play a part in any improvement is open to question. He is understandably coy with regard to his present position but makes clear that he would wish to be playing Champions League football and that he sees that as being beyond Spurs during the time remaining on his present deal with the club.

"I can't see it," he says. "If you can't get into Europe then you don't just jump up to that level. It's about building up to it so I think talking about next year is a bit premature."

"I'll just have to see how it goes next year," added the Dubliner, indicating in a concrete way for the first time that his being there is at least a possibility. "But everyone knows that the time will come when, if it's not happening for me at Spurs, then it would be time for me to move on."

If he does decide that that's what he must do then there is likely to be quite a queue for his services. A couple of years ago he was generally believed to have a value of more than £10 million.

But as things are much more subdued now in the English transfer market it is estimated that Spurs would accept around half that figure, particularly if they ease the disquiet among the club's supporters that would accompany his departure by steering the Irishman away from their more illustrious north London neighbours.

His value has probably also been hit by the long spell he spent on the sidelines battling against a knee injury that seemed so troublesome, for a while, that it might seriously threaten his future. After intensive treatment he finally regained his fitness this year although his inclusion in the PFA's team of the year at right back came as something of a surprise, not least to him it appears, for he insists that he is still well short of recapturing his best form.

"I'd say I'm still 30 per cent off it," he admits with just a hint of the frustration that must have been part of his daily life for the past couple of years. "Getting the award was nice but personally I know I'm not back to where I was. I'm not happy with the way I've been playing.

"It's surprising really. I think I'll have to go off and start from scratch over the summer so that hopefully I'll really be right for next season but I'm surprised . . . it's taken a lot longer than I would have expected and been a lot harder."

The lay-off cost him a trip to what would have been his first major international finals. While the rest of the Irish players were in Japan and South Korea he was working on his fitness at Spurs, barely able to watch their exploits on the television because of the distress he felt at missing out.

"Obviously it was great seeing the lads do well but I didn't watch too much of it to be honest because it's just piling agony on yourself. Maybe the positive side of it now is that it's left me even hungrier to experience what they did, to make it to these European Championships."

Anything less than six points over the coming six days, he says, and being in Portugal next summer is likely to be reduced to outlandish dream status. Getting the two wins, he adds though, should be firmly within the capability of this team.

Asked about the prospect of facing the Albanians tomorrow and in particular, coping with their star player, Edvin Muratti, he expresses quiet confidence that the contest might go very differently to the one in Tirana at the start of April.

"Whoever is playing at full-back (the fact that he is one of only two players who has played every minute of Brian Kerr's internationals so far suggests he will certainly be occupying the right back slot) is going to have to look to get higher up the pitch than we did then and dictate the game.

"Muratti's a good player. I've played against a lot better but that doesn't mean that he's a poor player. But the thing is that it's about us. About not letting their wing backs to get forward. About playing the way we know we can. I think both of the games will be very different here at Lansdowne Road."