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Stephen Ireland has backed his Manager to continue ‘doing great things
for the Club’ as Mark Hughes and the team look to keep rising up the
Barclays Premier League table.
Speaking strongly in support of Mark
Hughes, Ireland recalled: “I remember the first day we met him and in
his first meeting at Carrington he said; ‘You might not like the way I
do things, but I guarantee that I’ll make you better players at the end
of it,’ and he has.
“You look at Elano, he’s running more now –
I’m not saying that he was lazy before – I just mean that he’s turned
from this number 10 type player, into one that can go box-to-box.
“Some
people might not notice that he’s doing the hard work, but maybe he’s
just not doing it cleverly enough. If I go box-to-box and make sure I
win the ball then people say; ‘Oh Stephen’s everywhere.’ If Elano does
that and doesn’t retain the ball it’s not that he’s not working hard –
you’ve just got to be clever with your closing down.
“If you
look back over the teams we’ve had since I’ve been involved and you
know yourself, under Stuart Pearce we didn’t have players like that and
the tactics were totally different, the game’s changing as the seasons
go on.”
“This season we have a good team, we’re hungry, we know
what we want to achieve and we’ve got a great Manager and great staff
here.
“It’s just the consistency from us and we need to be stronger, mentally, especially when you go away and you’re up against it.”
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it’s the results away from home that City will need to improve on in
the second half of the season as Stephen stated: “When we’re at home,
it’s all great, we’ve got the fans behind us and playing lovely
football but the question is why can’t we do it when we’re away from
home?
“What should be the difference? It’s one football pitch, 11
players versus 11, so why can’t we do it? We just need to get that into
our game but the gaffer’s working on it.
“He’s a great man and
I think is doing great things for the Club. If any manager came in they
wouldn’t do half the things he’s doing.
“He’s involved in every
area of the training ground, the Club and developing it. I think if
some other manager came in they wouldn’t do things like expanding the
medical area or making a gym like the one we have, they wouldn’t really
care, but he cares a lot about the game, his job and his players.
“I
think it’s really important he stays there and I think he’ll get it
right – I really do. I’ve watched us and I know he’ll get it right.
“I
enjoy playing under him and he’s been great for me. All the other
players are really happy at the moment, you can tell that in training,
there are always smiles and training is great. We just need to get on a
winning streak.”
As for Stephen himself, he told of his desire to
take the team forward, saying: “I’d like to stamp my authority on the
team more because I want to be a leader as much as I can to everyone
and really drive the team.
“I want to take as much
responsibility as I can, especially away from home when things are
against us. I have good enough energy to inspire other players as well,
if I make a good tackle, or want to get the players up for the game
because sometimes you just don’t get off the coach.
“Even
against Blackburn, it was going into the last 20 minutes before we woke
up, but you could see that we have the mentality and how much it meant
to us and the staff as well. We’re just like one big family.”
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