Villain Ireland wants to be a hero

STEPHEN IRELAND is determined to rebuild his career at Aston Villa, after going from player of the year to spare part in barely 12 months at Manchester City.

The Cork man — who is in self-imposed exile from Republic of Ireland duty — was City’s outstanding player in the 2008-09 campaign, and recognised as such by his team-mates, but a year later he found himself being ushered away by new manager Roberto Mancini and with little option but to move on.

He turns 24 on Sunday, and believes by leaving Eastlands as part of the deal which took James Milner to City he has taken his career in the right direction.

“I have plenty of personal ambitions,” Ireland said. “I want to get back to playing the way I can — I haven’t played 90 minutes in nearly eight or nine months, which isn’t normal really for me.

“I’ve kind of forgotten the feeling what it is like to come off after a game feeling tired, winning or losing. I’m not used to sitting out for so long.

“So for me, I want to get back to playing at the top of my game and I want to work hard for my team-mates.

“I want to see if my team-mates and myself can push on and achieve something massive this season.”

Meanwhile, Villa caretaker-manager Kevin MacDonald has still to decide whether he wants to take over the reins at the club on a full-time basis.

MacDonald said: “I still haven’t particularly thought about it. I keep saying that I’ll know if I want it. At the moment I haven’t got that, although I haven’t had time to sit down and think about it.

“It has been a bit of a whirlwind, so I’ll wait and see, but I just need to know it’s going to be right for myself.

“It’s not just about me, it’s about my family. Becoming a Premier League manager is a life-changing thing,” added MacDonald.

The next three matches, and it is more than likely he will be given those games given their close proximity, may well determine whether he wants to give it a go.

“To actually think about whether I could cope or not, again I’ve not thought about it,” said MacDonald.

“I’ve coped with a lot of things in my life, but it’s not the case for me as to whether I could cope with the job, it’s whether I’d like to try and do the job.

“You probably need three or four games, high intensity, high pressure, just to see if it’s the be all and end all.”

For the clash with Rapid, MacDonald has made changes, some of which have been enforced with Richard Dunne suspended and John Carew out with a knee injury.

Carew joins Gabriel Agbonlahor, Carlos Cuellar and James Collins on the injury list, but MacDonald has also opted to rest Ashley Young, Stiliyan Petrov and Luke Young.

In come youngsters James Collins Jnr, Eric Lichaj, Shane Lowry, Barry Bannan and Austrian striker Andreas Weimann.

It’s too early for Ireland to feature but McDonald believes he will make a big impact. “Stephen is a very talented young player who will complement the talented young players we already have. Stephen’s slightly different from James (Milner), but both are intelligent footballers.

“Stephen is a more inventive player who can link up with people, gets in the box and scores a lot more goals, and hopefully he’ll do that for us.

“James has developed into a natural midfield player, Stephen has obviously played there most of his career, and from a young age. He probably understands the position a little more — not better — but a little more than James does.”