Green light back on in stop-go career of a striking prospect

It's a situation that would have been difficult to imagine even a few months ago. The striker considered by many to be Ireland's brightest prospect is ruled out by injury and manager Mick McCarthy still has options up front as he heads into this week's crucial European Championship qualifier in Belgrade. Strange times indeed in the Irish camp.

Robbie Keane's injury aside, though, McCarthy's favourite frontmen have been delivering one piece of good news after another over the last couple of weeks. Niall Quinn has been in sparkling form for English first division leaders Sunderland since returning from another injury layoff, Tony Cascarino has scored three in his last two games for Nancy, and David Connolly has beaten that by two at Wolves.

The weekend before naming his squad for the trip to Yugoslavia, however, Ireland's manager was keeping an eye on another of his strikers to have rediscovered his form of late. Norwich against Bradford scarcely leapt out of the fixture list last Saturday, but for McCarthy it had its appeal. To be precise, it had Keith O'Neill.

McCarthy's devotion to O'Neill's cause is no secret. He has spoken about the young winger in glowing terms since first handing him the opportunity to impress in America a couple of summers ago.

So far, O'Neill, as both men concede, has failed to live up to his manager's expectations. A remarkable series of injuries has restricted him to a handful of senior internationals and many of the players who broke into the Irish senior team around the same time - Kenny Cunningham, Gary Breen and David Connolly - have gone on to become far more firmly established than the 22-year-old Dubliner.

As a result he is, says McCarthy "still naive and inexperienced" as an international player and with only one striker expected to start in Yugoslavia his chances of resuming his disjointed education on Wednesday appear limited.

McCarthy, however, is nothing if not loyal to the players he rates and while even O'Neill himself reckons the best he will do for this game is a place on the bench, his performance on Saturday clearly impressed the Irish boss who credits him with "tearing apart" the Bradford defence for the half hour after he came into the game.

"He showed the qualities that I've always known he has. Power, pace and strength. He's a good crosser of the ball and as he's shown with us, he's not at all a bad finisher. A fit Keith O'Neill," concludes McCarthy (not for the first time), "would be a valuable asset to the Irish team."

Around Carrow Road the feeling is pretty much the same. Half a dozen management teams have passed through the place since the 17-year-old Irishman signed up with the club for £27-a-week, but they all have predicted big things for the former Tolka Rovers and Home Farm player.

Bryan Hamilton, the former Northern Ireland manager who is currently the club's first team coach, is as enthusiastic in his praise for O'Neill as McCarthy. "He completely turned the Bradford game," he says, "and that's the way he always is for us. He has speed, he's good in the air, and has a great left foot. He can play in a couple of different positions and can turn games wherever he plays. And he has a great personality, so it's not much surprise that we like him here."

O'Neill insists he likes them, too, although like many Irish teenagers across the water, he did find it difficult to settle when he arrived there five years ago. Often, he recalls, he cried himself to sleep due to the homesickness, but on the field things were progressing well enough for his father to persuade him to stick with it. A first team debut came in a Premiership game against Southampton during his second year and over the next two seasons at the club he won over the supporters with seven goals in 45 appearances.

It might have been more, but as early as the week after that Southampton game, he got a taste of what the first five years of his professional life were going to be like. He broke his ankle shortly after coming on in a reserve match against Crystal Palace. Since then, if it's in the medical text books, he's had it.

In the past season-and-a-half he has made just 21 first-team appearances - and precious few in the reserves for City's current manager Bruce Rioch won't risk him in those games anymore. When asked to reflect on what sort of career he has had to date, he sums it up as "one big injury".

What he intends to achieve in the future is quite another thing. "I'd like to have the sort of career my talent deserves," says the man who has recently declined to sign a new contract offered by Rioch.

The refusal to commit himself to Norwich is said to have annoyed Rioch, though O'Neill insists that his manager respects the fact that he is merely protecting his interests. It has also alienated the club's supporters who booed him when he made his latest return from injury against Huddersfield six weeks ago.

"That hurt," he says, "because it was the first time I have ever had a negative reaction from the fans and my parents were over at the game. It's a pity as well because the supporters are making assumptions about what's going on when they really don't know. Everybody thinks I want to leave Norwich, but I've never said that." However, he did say - and on national television too - that the best thing about Norwich was the road to London. The joke, inspired by Dustin the Turkey's views on Mullingar, was he admits just the kind of blunder he has a habit of committing. It took him some time to live down.

Still, he says, "people say I can't wait to get out of the place but I've spent all of my adult life in Norwich and I probably know it better than Dublin now. The family I live with (his former girlfriend's) live in a house out in the country with stables and all that, so I have a really nice set up here.

"I'd really like to stay, but at the end of the day the people representing me (Kevin Moran is his agent) have asked the club for what they feel I'm worth and despite the manager - who I've always gotten on very well with - telling me that if was up to him he'd give it to me, the club haven't been prepared to offer that."

Hamilton says he and Rioch are keen for O'Neill to stay, a desire strengthened in midweek by a fine performance in the game at Portsmouth. Hamilton admits that the gap between the club's offer and his demands remains a problem.

"We'd love to have him around and we are certainly hoping that he and his agents decide to accept what the club feels is the best offer they can make.

"Ultimately, though, we know that players sign contracts for particular periods of time, just like the rest of us do, and we respect his right to do what he feels is best for him. All we can do is work on the basis that he is with us until the end of the season and see what happens after that."

The uncertainty has led to an endless bout of speculation about where the Irishman's future lies. If City are to get a fee for him they must sell quickly, but Southampton and Charlton are amongst the clubs said to have been put off by a reported £2 million price tag. Norwich thought they would get twice that a year ago when Newcastle were amongst the richer clubs to show interest. Now they face the prospect of losing him without receiving a penny.

Interest from clubs in Italy and Spain in recruiting him if he becomes a free agent has, meanwhile, clearly caught the imagination of the player, who consequently seems to struggle to sound enthusiastic when clubs from the wrong end of the Premiership are mentioned in the same breath as his name.

O'Neill makes no secret of the fact that he reckons he is good enough to go on to better things. Far from considering himself a risky buy after all of his injuries, he insists that he could be a bargain if snapped up now. Not for the first time there is a hint of the self-importance for which he has gained a reputation over the years. When the matter is raised he strongly denies being arrogant, but in the next breath says "I'm just a confident lad".

It seems everybody who knows him, even slightly, has a favourite story to tell on the subject. He is said to have recently announced to journalists on a local Norwich paper that he was adopting a "nationals only" policy in his media dealings. Such stories have helped to create the wrong impression.

For all the talk of the great times that lie ahead, it doesn't take long for doubts to re-surface.

He has never doubted that he has the potential to become "a great player", but whether he realises that potential is another matter altogether.

"It's been hard not being able to play, I suppose it would be the same for anybody who loves their job, but can't seem to get on with doing it. I love football, but there always seems to be something stopping me from playing.

"That's frustrating enough when it's just you, but when I was getting injured the fans were getting upset, my family were getting upset and everybody at the club would be upset. I'd be feeling guilty about letting them down as well as bad for myself. It just seemed to be one thing after another."

McCarthy admits to seeing O'Neill "terribly depressed" as he tried to face up to one spell after another on the sidelines over the past couple of years and it was during this time that the Republic of Ireland manager repeatedly went out of his way, often publicly, to reassure the youngster that there was going to be a place for him in the national set-up when his luck began to turn.

"The fact is that all that cockiness and arrogance is just a front," says McCarthy. "Keith is a lovely lad, I've an awful lot of time for him and a lot of admiration for the way he has come through some of the times he's had over the past couple of seasons."

The admiration is mutual. O'Neill repeatedly returns to the subject of how highly he rates McCarthy. He feels he owes McCarthy a debt of gratitude. Now that he's finally back playing again, he's keen to make a repayment.

Wednesday night would, as far as he's concerned, be as good a time to start as any. After all, as O'Neill knows only too well, you never know what lies around the next corner.