There's no holding back our Clinton

If self-belief could be bottled Clinton Morrison would be making even more serious money, writes Emmet Malone.

Holding yesterday's press conference at breakfast time struck some of the media travelling to Israel as the boys from Merrion Square indulging in "cruel and unusual punishment". Perhaps they're on to something, though. With the blazers wielding power like this it might be a while before you see another of those "FAI fiasco" headlines.

Who better to lift the gloom, though, than Clinton Morrison? The Birmingham City striker arrives after Brian Kerr and the morning's other players, a late peace offering, perhaps, by association officials who realise they've gone too far. In he bounds and off he goes. The 26-year-old has been knocked back once or twice in his career, but nobody does soldiering on regardless quite like him.

Morrison has always given the impression he could sit 24 hours straight at the poker table without a decent hand and still feel certain the good times were just around the corner. If self-belief could be bottled and sold the young man would have a second way of making a fortune.

A couple of days back in Ireland and the striker was looking as upbeat as ever yesterday, even after another tough season at St Andrew's where he has remained a peripheral figure as a result of Steve Bruce adding another couple of strikers to his squad.

"I'm not playing for Birmingham and obviously I'm not happy about that," he said, "but my game's fine to be fair and I know that every time I put on the green jersey I do the business, so my confidence is sky high even if I'm not playing as much football as I'd like."

Morrison's suffering is compounded this season by the success of Andy Johnson, who moved to Crystal Palace as a €1.1 million make-weight in the swap deal that took the Irish international to Birmingham. Bruce continues to overlook him and he has played just 65 minutes of first team football since last appearing for Ireland in the Portugal game but, he insists, he is due more credit than he gets.

"I don't think I've done too badly actually," he says. "I scored a lot of goals in the first division so I know all about that, and I've had seven in 12 starts this season, which I think is all right. I don't want to get into a debate about it, but I don't think that when I play well I should be dropped."

In the circumstances, he admits, his place in the Irish team has become all the more important and he's quick to express his appreciation to Kerr for the faith the manager showed in him during a year-long barren spell for Ireland.

"Brian was great to me, though. He always kept faith I me and was always helping to boost my confidence. They've helped me a huge amount as a player too," he adds. "Himself and Chris (Hughton) have sat down and told me what they want to do - to hold the ball up, to win the flick-ons and to help bring other players into the game. I've learned from them and I think I've improved a lot as a player, but then it's a strong squad and when you're around good players like that you do improve and I've taken a lot of it back to Birmingham."

Some of what he has brought back must have caught the eye of Bruce because the club have offered Morrison a new contract, something he has declined to consider until he sizes up his situation in the close season.

"I'm keeping my options open, which is always the best way. All any footballer wants to do is to play football not just sit on the bench, and at the moment I am sitting on the bench. The manager has offered me something but I don't want to sign it right now, I want to wait until the end of the season and see what happens."

Which sounds reasonable until he goes on to expand on his ambitions. "I don't want to jump too soon," he remarks before, with Kerr looking just a little startled beside him, taking a sizeable leap, "but if I get back into the Birmingham side and scoring goals then Id like to play for one of the biggest clubs - Chelsea, Manchester United or Liverpool."

If Clinton told his boyhood mates he was going to play for Ireland some day it must have seemed daft, and suddenly it doesn't feel so bad to have been up at dawn to hear this. Clinton Morrison playing for Jose Mourinho (who will be at Saturday's game) in the Champions League? I was there when the man said it would happen.