Former Liverpool winger Downing knew he needed first-team football and though he was reluctant to leave Liverpool, he is enjoying a new lease of life at West Ham Signing for West Ham United happened in a blur for Stewart Downing. One moment he was challenging Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers over rumours that he was for sale, the next he was holding talks with Sam Allardyce over a £6million move. “I didn’t have to think about it that long,” Downing says. “I just said: ‘OK, I will sign tomorrow.’ And that was it. Done.” Not that the winger was angling to leave Liverpool. Far from it. He loved playing for the club and believed, understandably given reassurances from Rodgers, that his future was at Anfield having forced his way back into the team last season after being told he lacked the “fight”. However, that changed again in Dublin, on the morning of Aug 10, ahead of Liverpool’s final pre-season friendly against Celtic. “I was staying at Liverpool and was told there was nothing in the West Ham approach,” Downing recalls. “Then Brendan pulled me on the day of the Celtic game and said: ‘I’ve just found out they’ve accepted a fee today.’” Rodgers again told Downing that he did not want him to go. “But obviously that was not what I was getting back from the club and he [Rodgers] said he couldn’t promise I would play every week,” the winger says. “That’s understandable, but at my age [29] I need to play and there’s a World Cup coming up so I want to give myself a chance to get into the England squad.” It was also in Downing’s mind that it had been Kenny Dalglish, not Rodgers, who signed him for £20million from Aston Villa in 2011, and although he was “in possession of the shirt” – a favoured phrase of his – that might not last. He could not face another spell in the wilderness. “I need to play,” Downing says. “I could not go through that again. I’d missed three or four months when Brendan first came and the season before that I was in and out. "I came back in the summer and with new players in the [Liverpool] team I was determined to have the attitude: ‘It’s up to you to try and get my shirt.’ And that’s how it felt until that conversation. “It looked like I wasn’t going to play [at Liverpool] and with two years left on my contract I knew they wouldn’t offer me a new one. "I didn’t want to sit around because Brendan will want to keep on spending and reinforcing and wanting his own team. So I had to make a decision and Sam Allardyce gave me the opportunity.” For the West Ham manager it was also a case of finally getting his man having tracked Downing since he made his name at Middlesbrough. “He made a joke about it the other day,” Downing says. “He said he couldn’t afford me before.” Allardyce invited him to speak to West Ham players – captain Kevin Nolan, former Aston Villa team-mate James Collins and two more signed from Liverpool in Joe Cole and Andy Carroll. “There are good ambitions here – moving to the Olympic Stadium and with Andy signing, and with the manager wanting to keep strengthening,” Downing says. “I was happy to make that move. It’s a great club, a club on the up and finished 10th last year and we want to finish as high as we can. "He’s made it clear to us that he wants to finish higher and I think we can do that. I liked his [Allardyce’s] ambitions. “He’s not one to sit around, Sam, he wants to keep improving so I thought it was a good time to come here. “He’s quite persuasive and he’s very straightforward, which is all you can ask for as a player. "He told me to come here, come and enjoy my football and he would improve me as a player –simple things but things that you want to hear. “I look at it as a whole: am I going to be playing regularly? What type of team is it? Am I going to fit in? "And the stadium tops it off. All factors come into it but the biggest one for me is playing regularly I didn’t have to think about it that long.” A four-year deal – and a pay-cut – was agreed. So far, however, it has been stop-start with Downing set back, after a bright start, by a “tricky injury” having suffered a “bleed to my thigh”. He is now fit and hoping to play in the London derby away against Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday with West Ham desperate to improve on an indifferent opening to the season. “We’ve had injuries to players that Sam has signed – Andy has had his knock-backs, I was struggling, Joe Cole as well. "So we’ve been a bit unlucky especially with all of us out at the same time.” While injured, and with Nolan’s encouragement, Downing took his first steps towards gaining his coaching badges. Staying in football – either as a coach or manager – is something that he wants to do and having worked with the likes of Martin O’Neill, Dalglish and Rodgers has experienced various approaches. All have impressed him – not least Allardyce. “He looks into a lot of things,” Downing says. “He’s surprised me with some of the stuff that we do here. "He looks at the stats and the individual performances of the players, where they can do that bit extra. I certainly like his ideas and the way that he works.” Another former manager, for club and country, with Middlesbrough and England, is Steve McClaren. Downing was on the bench that dismal, wet November night in 2007 when England lost 3-2 against Croatia to fail to qualify for Euro 2008. The silence in the dressing room afterwards is something the winger will never forget. “We thought we got it back,” Downing says. “And then there was that late goal. It was a strange night.” That winning goal was scored by Mladen Petric –now a West Ham team-mate. Still, while Downing was an unused substitute during Euro 2012 and has not been selected since, he remains hopeful that he can add to his 34 caps and win back a World Cup place – provided, of course, that England qualify for the finals in Brazil. Downing will be glued to his television set for the last two qualifiers. “I certainly still want to play for England,” he says. “Obviously I’ve not played for a long time but you never know. I just want to give myself a chance and coming here and playing well for West Ham gives me a better chance than if I had stayed at Liverpool.” (Telegraph)
Posted on: Sat, 05 Oct 2013 22:21:06 +0000
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