Morrison determined to secure a fresh start

Emmet Malone listens to Birmingham's unsettled striker outline his plans for a move to aid his international career.

Ireland striker Clinton Morrison yesterday dropped the broadest hint to date of a possible move away from his current club, Birmingham City.

After Michael Essien, it is hard to think of any player who has been the subject of more transfer speculation than Morrison over the summer months.

And nobody, not even the Chelsea-bound Ghanaian, can have fuelled the fire with quite such fervent enthusiasm as Morrison did at yesterday's pre-match press conference.

"I don't want to say too much, but something big is going to happen very soon," replied Morrison to the sort of routine status inquiry that normally gets safely booted safely into the stands.

Morrison added he had the latest in a long line of discussions regarding his future at St Andrew's with Bruce over the past couple of weeks and the manager had told him, not for the first time, to be patient and take his chance when it came around.

"But obviously it's not going to come," remarked the 26-year-old, "and I'm not prepared to sit on the bench."

Steve Bruce may be of the opinion that his strike rate is not sufficient to secure him a regular place in Birmingham City's starting line-up despite Morrison's recently discovered knack for lighting up Ireland games with memorable goals.

But the game is supposed to be about entertainment too and in that department Clinton Morrison is simply in a different league to the likes of Mikael Forssell and Emile Heskey when it comes to performing for the media pack both before and after matches.

Yesterday pre-match press shindig at Lansdowne Road was no exception with Brian Kerr providing a sober assessment of Ireland's prospects against Italy this evening and Levante's Ian Harte being polite about the prospect of spending a season taking on the likes of Xerez, Club Gimnastic and other Spanish second division sides.

Then came Morrison who stepped up to the plate with characteristic panache.

"I think when I'm playing games and confident I score goals but I'm not enjoying my football now because it's hard to come off the bench with two minutes to go knowing you need to make an impact."

In his time with Ireland, the striker has made steady progress, establishing a highly productive partnership with Robbie Keane while scoring four times in his last eight appearances.

"Yeah, every time I come back from Ireland they give me stick and tell me I should wear green for Birmingham cos I score goals all the time here," he said before adding with a hint of a grin, "I tell them I'm just playing with better players."

Who he will be playing with next at club level remains something of a mystery but Morrison said several times a deal was imminent.

However, there was no hint of whether it is one of the clubs that has previously expressed an interest in acquiring his services (Sunderland, Charlton and Sheffield United have been amongst those mentioned) or a brand new suitor ahead of deadline day.

Sunderland had been the favourites but his wages, he admits, proved a stumbling block. If it comes to it then, somebody suggested, he might just have to bite the bullet on the issue of pay.

"Mmmm, it's big," he grins. "I like to wear a lot of diamonds and that (the ring he was wearing yesterday left little doubt on that score).

"Wouldn't like to get into the cheap stuff."

Others are ruled out by his determination to remain in the top flight. "I wouldn't like to drop down," he said, "because I still think I can do a job for someone in the Premiership but the most important thing is that I'm playing football. It's what I enjoy doing and I want to be doing it every week. It's important because of my international career too. It's a World Cup year and I don't want to play in the qualifiers, for Ireland to get to the finals and then to miss out because I'm not playing regularly for my club."