‘Clumsy’ striker Lee bids to give Stan selection headaches

STEVE STAUNTON was recently quoted as describing Alan Lee as “clumsy” — and he meant it in the nicest possible way.

The Galway-born Ipswich Town striker is unlikely to take offence. At 6ft 3ins, he knows his strengths.

“I look at the Irish centre forwards and there is no other big lump so to speak,” he grins.

“I have got my eye on that situation and hopefully the manager has as well.”

A return to the Irish squad for the summer training camp and friendly against Chile caps a season in which not even injury could detract from the overall success of a move from Cardiff to Ipswich for the 27-year-old striker.

“The club, the facilities, the friends I made there, the area is absolutely wonderful,” he says.

“Obviously on the pitch it went particularly well in the first six games. The only downside was tearing my hamstring.”

At Ipswich, he has also joined a little community of Irish players, including Shane Supple, Owen Garvan and Billy Clarke.

“Yeah, it’s great to have a few Paddies around,” Lee says. “We can team up on people. It is nice. There are a lot of young players in general and there a few players in my situation who have moved around a bit and now find themselves there. I have found it very easy to make friends but it is nice to have the Irish lads. Shane Supple came in on St Patrick’s Day with little shamrock badges for us all, so things like that are nice.”

But the real Irish connection Lee wants to make is at international level, where he is anxious to show his best form and add to his eight caps.

However, the Chile game may come too soon for a man still shaking off the effects of his hamstring injury.

“What I would like most is to be 100%,” he says. “The last year or so I have not really been myself. I have struggled with my groins, I had a hernia operation and I wasn’t playing well at Cardiff. I didn’t have my confidence, I didn’t feel I was as fast, and that worried me. Then things seemed to clear up in Cardiff and I was playing better and better but I wasn’t playing in the team.

“But I went to Ipswich, that was fine. I was back to my old self and doing all things I use to do, feeling as fast as I ever had and as fit. I would love an opportunity when I am in that zone to play and show what I could do for Ireland. If I could play a game like that, then I will know I did it — and if that isn’t good enough, then I will hold my hands up and say: ‘that’s fair enough,’ because there is obviously exceptionally talented lads ahead of me.

“But, I would love, for my own sake, to be able to play and be involved when I am in top form.”