Troy keen but injury intervenes

His upward mobility so far might tempt some people to reach for the ‘Troy Of The Rovers’ headlines but the real world of football can often find a way to spoil a comic book storyline.

Teen sensation Troy Parrott was fast-tracked into Stephen Kenny’s first competitive Ireland squad but the Spurs striker is still recovering from surgery on a toe and will now be unable to make his U21 debut against Luxembourg next Sunday.

“It’s just that they don’t want to rush things back,” the Dubliner said, fresh from picking up the FAI’s U16 Player of the Year award for 2018.

The toe problem is one he had been nursing for some time.

“I think it started with me getting stood on but I didn’t know at that stage that it was going to end up getting bigger and bigger,” he says.

“I could play through it usually but then there was one game where it just went so it was something I just had to get done. I’ve been back running this week and I’ve done a little with the ball but I’m a bit rusty after four or five weeks out.”

Now that he knows Sunday’s game will come too soon for him, Parrott says: “I’m very, very disappointed. Playing for the Irish U21s is a big thing.”

Parrott, a Belvedere FC graduate who was a star for Ireland at the U17 Euro finals last year, has also been fast-tracked at Spurs, not only playing for the the club’s U23 side but, in the space of a heady couple of weeks last December, getting to travel with the first team to Leicester City in the Premier League and training with them on the pitch at the Nou Camp.

“Unreal” and “unbelieveable” are the superlatives he opts for to sum up those experiences.

“They are all good people a great bunch of players,” he says of the Tottenham first teamers. “They all make you feel welcome. Obviously Harry Kane is somebody we all look up to as a striker, so it’s good.”

On the pace of his own progress in the game, Parrott says:

“You sort of don’t even see how fast it is going. But I’ll just keep taking things in my stride and hopefully keep progressing.

When you go from playing in Ireland, from a non-professional team to a professional set-up, obviously you see changes straight away between the diet and the gym work. I’ve got massively better since I’ve moved to England, working with better coaches and all of that.

Is he aware of the hype surrounding him at home?

“Everybody tells me people are talking about me but I don’t really take notice of it, to be honest.

"Obviously it’s good to have stuff like that, it makes you want to do better. I just keep trying to improve as a player, that’s all.”