The Irish international and England semi-pro on the best managers, the worst players and how Portugal compares to Blackpool

Hi Eamonn, nice and easy to begin with: what’s your favourite club? As a kid I’d always supported Manchester United, but as a player Blackpool was certainly the best time I had. That’s where I had the most success when we were promoted to the old Third Division. The spirit around the place was always brilliant. We had some good pros in the dressing room but we had a cracking laugh too. I think you need that if you’re going to get promoted. Maybe that’s what the current team have!

I keep getting told that your goal against Chesterfield was one of the best strikes ever seen at Blackpool. It can’t have been that brilliant, can it? “I remember being on the left-hand side on my own. As I always was, because Paul Stewart was bone idle! Anyway, nothing else was really on and I was about 25 yards out. I decided to hit it with my right peg, because there was literally no one within 100 miles of me and it came off really sweetly. I’m sure the distance has got longer and longer over the years I’ve been telling this story. It was probably a five-yard tap-in!

Were you at home plying your trade in the north-west? I played from non-league to international level and I’d like to think my CV is a varied mix of things. But yes, I was definitely more at home playing in the north-west. There’s always something for you to hate up there, I noticed! So if we were going down south to play against a team, we just used the excuse that they were from ‘down there’ to get ourselves really pumped. Strange, I know …

I’m assuming you can whip up a decent paella now that you’re living in Spain? Well, as I’ve never lived in Spain, no I can’t cook that!

Oh, erm Portugal then was it? Yeah that’s right. I’m a dab hand at chicken peri peri on the barbecue. It’s brilliant out there – I’m living in Vilamoura along the Algarve.

Are we to assume you’re handy with the golf clubs? I’m off a 13 handicap, so not too bad! I tend not to play as serious as others out there and use it more for the escapism than anything. Obviously, if people come over to see me and my wife, we’ll have a round and I’ll end up throwing my club into a lake or something.

So, back to the footy. Best manager? Howard Kendall was fantastic – such a good manager. Tactically he was spot on. Sam Ellis at Blackpool was a bit different – he was very good in the bar! His outlook to football was totally different. He wanted big centre-halves who could head a ball 50 yards. That’s all fine, but for us strikers it meant we had to bring the ball down on your ear and score. If you didn’t you’d be straight out but the defenders were always safe as long as that ball was headed miles! I think Sam thought about defending a bit more and that came across in his game plan, whereas Howard was a forward thinker.

Worst player you played with? Don’t hold anything back Oh this is easy. Mike Walsh! I played with him at Everton under Kendall, and we were great mates. He was a smashing fella, but so slow that the Queen Mary could comfortable beat him in a race! He moved to Blackpool and when they tried to sign me a couple of years later, they sent Mick to try and persuade me to join. I asked him why he was the one that was negotiating and he replied that he was promised another year’s contract if I signed! How could I say no?

Although totally out of your hands, do you regret not playing for Ireland as much? I played as an over-aged player for Ireland against China a few times, and scored a couple of goals. I only scored against them, though, and people thought I’d had a dodgy Chinese takeaway or something such was my willingness to score!

The England non-league side called me up whilst I was at Mossley but then when Ireland wanted to play me for the full team I was banned because I’d already represented England at semi-pro and they didn’t want to devalue those caps. So I said could I play for England, then, if Ireland is out of the question? Of course not, because I’d worn the green of Ireland at Under-21 level. It was very annoying. I did end up playing a part for Ireland later after my ban was lifted but I missed out on World Cup experiences and things like that because I was past my peak.

There was one bloke in the 19th century apparently who went over to Ireland and asked if he could be in their team only for them to find out he was English and they chucked him out. A bit cheeky!

You moved back into midfield as you got older. Please tell me you weren’t an Alan Smith? What’s wrong with Alan Smith? Ha ha! But no, I was nothing like him. Although it’s totally different now, back then if you got whacked you’d just get up and carry on. Referees have changed it all now. Tough tackling has been outlawed and someone like Smith struggles to adapt. Having said that, I think I might’ve suited today’s game a bit more. I was a bit of a softy and tended to look after myself!

Lastly, did being injured and eventually retiring make you a better player in your mind? Ha, yes! It’s far easier to sit in the stand and pass judgment, saying I’d like to play in this team or that. Unfortunately, when I tried to come back from my injury I wasn’t as sharp, and retired at 34. In fact, I’d liken myself to Michael Owen! The medical staff said if I carried on training I wouldn’t be able to walk for much longer, so it was perhaps time to finish.

Eamonn O’Keefe’s autobiography I Only Wanted To Play Football is on sale now, reliving the English-born Republic of Ireland player’s days as a professional, and how he dealt with a career-ending injury.

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Tottenham leave egg on our faces, Wenger sums up Arsenal’s plight, Arteta takes inspiration from the Three Stooges, Mancini brings an old joke to mind and that kiss was just wrong

Tottenham Hotspur are full of surprises

Who are the team that’s just beaten Arsenal and Chelsea and what have they done with the real Spurs? This time last week, Tottenham’s season was pootling along much as we’ve come to expect: an expectation-raising opening-day win against Liverpool and a 9-1 thrashing of Wigan Athletic here, a routine hiding by Arsenal and beatings at the hands of Wolves and Sunderland there. When a decent Cup run was derailed by Pompey’s motley crew of misfits just before season-defining encounters against Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United, even the most optimistic White Hart Lane regulars must have feared their campaign was about to flatline.

Their first Premier League win against Arsenal in aeons and an astonishing demolition job on Chelsea later and those of us who confidently predicted Tottenham’s end-of-season collapse have been left picking eggshell, albumen and vitellus from our gormless, slack-jawed faces. It’ll be a small price to pay if Harry Redknapp’s increasingly mature side remain a serious force to be reckoned with in next season’s Premier League. [BG]

Arsenal: ‘Unlucky, but poor’

Arsène Wenger unwittingly summed up Arsenal’s season after watching Wigan battle back to beat the Gunners 3-2 at the DW Stadium. “The goals we conceded were very poor,” said the Arsenal manager. “Unlucky but poor.” Unlucky but poor. The Gunners have been unfortunate, for sure, with injuries taking a heavy toll on a thin squad (but even then their lack of squad depth is a reason for what is surely now their failure to win the title, not an excuse), but they’ve also been the dictionary definition of poor: “insufficient”, “not adequate in quality”, “deficient or lacking in something specified”.

That “something specified” yesterday was a bit of gumption, a bit of “thou shall not pass” spirit, the nous to take the sting out of a side of no little quality themselves fighting for their Premier League lives. What makes it all the more galling for the Gunners is the fact the title will be won this season by the lowest points tally since at least 2002-03. This campaign was a chance, a 30-storey chance with magnificent chandeliers and deep-pile carpets, for this interminable stage of Project Wenger to at last emerge from its pupa and flutter off with the title. Instead the north London side remain in their chrysalis. [JA]

Arteta is better than a poke in the eye

Mikel Arteta is the neutral’s poster boy. He seems to have it all: the brave recovery from horrendous injury, rare vision and artistry on the field, dignity and equanimity despite constantly being overlooked by Spain, even the typos on his Twitter page are endearing (”Still a bit sore from the game at Goodison, was so nice to score a free kick and to get three pints”, “Thank you for all your support and woshes, today was a wonderful day for me”).

“It was amazing to see so many Evertonians at the game yesterday,” is his latest tweet, but on Saturday Morten Gamst Pedersen was left seeing only half the number of supporters at Ewood after Arteta went all Three Stooges on the Blackburn midfielder, attempting to place his index finger on the inside-back of the Norwegian’s skull via his right eye. Even then his semi-apology brought you on to his side. “I made a mistake, I shouldn’t have reacted and I apologise for it,” he said. “I probably got more upset because I was out for so long and don’t want a stupid challenge like that injuring me again. I wasn’t even touching the ball – he just trod on my ankle. It was stupid. If he did it because he wanted me to react then he got what he wanted, which I shouldn’t have done, and I’m sorry for that.” Nevertheless, it has sullied Arteta’s image. That sort of thing has no place in football. Rugby, yes, but not football. [JA]

If it ain’t broke, Roberto Mancini shouldn’t try to fix it

Far be it from us to latch on to lazy national stereotypes, but when it became apparent that what looked like a seriously attack-minded Manchester City side sent out by Roberto Mancini to face Manchester United had been instructed to approach the opposition half with extreme caution, that old gag about five-geared Italian tanks sprang to mind. A pale imitation of the rampant swashbuckling City team that had swept all before them in their three previous games, it came as no great surprise when they conceded a late, late winner against their fiercest rivals for the third time this season. The crucial error may have been Craig Bellamy’s late attempted crossfield pass, but Mancini should probably shoulder much of the blame for trying to play the occasion instead of the actual game. [BG]

Gary Neville and Paul Scholes should get a room

That kiss was wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. And before you scuttle off down to the comments section to level accusations of homophobia at us, don’t bother. If it was two ripped and dashing footballers – some Matt Taylor-on-Jason Roberts action, for example – we’d have no problem with such ostentatious public displays of man-love and possibly even be a little turned on. Hell, even if Gary Neville had just planted one hand on either side of Paul Scholes’s head and laid a black-and-white movie style smacker on his lips, that would have been fine too. But it was the tenderness of the moment, the cupping of the face, the tilting of the heads, the eyes closed expectantly, the blur of ginger hair and wispy not-quite-beardness in yesterday’s sport sections that put us off our lunch. Down with this sort of thing. Careful now. [BG]

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• Draw at Everton ‘lifts spirits and confidence’
• ‘What matters is what we do on the pitch,’ says manager

Gianfranco Zola said West Ham United had delivered the perfect response to their critics – inside and outside the club – after his relegation‑threatened team ended Everton’s seven-match winning run at Goodison Park and eased the pressure on their besieged manager.

The draw put the Hammers a point ahead of third-from-bottom Hull City, albeit having played a game more. Zola has endured a turbulent spell of public criticism from the West Ham co-owner David Sullivan.

“This is the right way to respond,” said Zola, who had questioned his future at the club following a defeat by Stoke City last weekend. “What matters is what we do on the pitch. The only way to respond is through football. We cannot stop the criticism. People want to give their opinions and judge us but we showed today that we are 100% focused on football.

“I’ve no other feelings apart from being pleased for my team. It is a difficult situation but we don’t want to stop fighting. That was what we said to the players before the game. All the team decided to fight until the end. No matter what, we’re going to fight until the end of the season and today was a clear demonstration of that because we never gave up.”

While the result at Goodison has not improved West Ham’s survival prospects dramatically – and while they will be without the influential Scott Parker for their next two matches, after the midfielder collected his 10th booking of the season – Zola believes the point gained will have a major influence on the morale of his squad.

Zola, who saw his striker Mido miss a first‑half penalty, said: “We are still very