Rob Elliot’s tale of the unexpected

Want to know what a difference eight months can make? Just ask Rob Elliot, the goalkeeper who has gone from being surplus to requirements at Newcastle United as recently as last August to becoming one of the club’s players of the season as the Magpies battle to retain their Premier League status.

It’s a run of first-team form which also means he’ll not only add to his three Ireland caps in the Easter friendlies but is increasingly well-placed to claim one of the goalkeeping berths in Martin O’Neill’s Euros squad.

“I know football changes quickly, but if you’d have said to me I’d have played 20-odd games in a row for Newcastle this year I would have been very surprised,” says the softly-spoken 29-year-old. “I suppose that’s the way football goes, and it’s turned around very nicely for me. It’s just been nice to be able to perform every week and show people what I can do consistently.

“In the past, I only had maybe a cup game here or one game there when Tim [Krul] was injured, but I’ve been able to give an honest account not just of the keeper I am, but the fact that, for the three years previously, I’ve been performing like that in training and working hard. I just didn’t have the chance to do it on a match day.”

It was a season-ending injury for Krul which opened the door to Elliot at St James’ Park, an unfortunate experience for the Dutchman to which the Irish keeper can relate, since he too has had to endure a protracted spell in the sick bay.

“I tore my thigh against Chelsea in December 2014 and then I didn’t play a game until we played Norwich in October 2015,” he recalls. “I had about three or four setbacks and I even had another one while I was playing but I was able to get away with it. Touch wood, it has been brilliant since.

“I am really pleased with Martin O’Neill and the doc here, but also Newcastle because they managed the situation well. It was a really bad time for me and I didn’t see a future, especially at the level I’m playing at now. But the experience I’ve taken out of it is you have to keep working hard and keep your head right because you just never know what is going to happen in football. It’s such a crazy game.”

Greenwich-born Elliot, who qualifies for Ireland through his father’s Cork family background, feels that the experience of suffering some of football’s hardest blows stands to him now in dealing with the pressure of a relegation dogfight in a passionate place like Tyneside.

“Because of where I was, and how low I was, pressure has become irrelevant to me,” he reflects. “I went from being so low and at a point in my career where I couldn’t find a club to go to, because I hadn’t played and I’d been injured for six or seven months.

“Then you realise that, actually, it is just a game of football. My son [Max] was born [in December 2014]. Things like that in life make you realise that when the lows are so bad, you’ve got to enjoy the highs and you want to enjoy the pressure that comes with it, because the day when you’re retired and sitting on your sofa, you’ll never be able to get that sort of thing back.

“It’s nice that my family life is really settled, with my little boy and one on the way [in September]. When you go home, you switch off and you’ve got a lovely little family to enjoy. Maybe it’s also just getting older and getting a bit more experience that you realise how to handle the pressure better. I think the biggest thing on a Saturday is that you don’t want to have any regrets, you don’t want to walk off the pitch thinking, ‘Why didn’t I do this or that?’ You want to walk off going, ‘I did everything I could and it either went for me or it didn’t’.”

What has he made of Rafa Benitez since his arrival at Newcastle?

“He’s a very calming influence. Very tactical. He’s got us working a lot on the training pitch about shape and how he wants the team to play. He said straight away, obviously it’s all hypothetical, but if we had bad results in the next three games it doesn’t mean it’s over. We still have another game so you can’t let your heads drop too low.

“It was a good talk after Leicester because we were disappointed with the game. Obviously, we came back to get a point against Sunderland and hopefully we can build on that. His experience speaks for itself. For him to come into our club, it’s sort of unheard of, so we need to make the most of it and get him there next year.”

Suddenly, a dream summer is beckoning for Rob Elliot: Safety, first, with Newcastle and then France 2016 with Ireland, the latter a goal that was never only at the back of his mind.

“It was probably at the forefront of my mind,” he smiles. “At the time, Newcastle didn’t want me so the only thing I was clinging onto was that I had an outside chance with the Ireland squad. Obviously, there was a massive tournament coming up and we still had qualifiers to play then. My thought process was to get fit and play as many games as I can.

“And it’s happened — but it’s happened in probably the least expected way.”