Queens Park Rangers v Middlesbrough

HOOPS
If I get to play three or
more at the top level and do
that with the club I love, the
club I supported as a boy, I
could eventually retire happy
knack of scoring late goals – apart from
the Birmingham game, where you scored
about 70 minutes earlier than usual…
The main thing is to help the team get
three points, whoever scores. But even
when I was playing as a winger, scoring
goals was a bonus – my main job was to
set them up and I’d celebrate an assist
more than anything else. Where I’m
playing now, I can call myself a defender
and that means there’s even less
pressure to score goals! Despite that, it’s
a great feeling when you put the ball in
the net and that goal at Birmingham was
the best I’ve had this season, especially
because I was getting stick from their
fans as a former Aston Villa player.
Recently, of course, you became
officially the Championship’s most
experienced player in terms of games.
Are you aiming to reach the 500 mark
– or is the plan to be appearing in a
different league next season?
Obviously I want to play more games
and I’ve now moved on to 459 in the
Championship – so if we were to get
promotion this season, I’d still be well short
of the 500. I’ve still got ambitions to play
in the Premier League – it was supposed
to be the ‘promised land’ when I got there
with Middlesbrough but it wasn’t. I played
two games in the Premier League and then
I was waving goodbye. So if I get to play
three or more at the top level and do that
with the club I love, the club I supported as
a boy, I could eventually retire happy.
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