Samuel still walking in World Cup wonderland.
By: The Sunday Times.
The Trinidad and Tobago forward has returned from his experience in Germany with a rediscovered confidence that can only benefit Dundee United, finds Neil White.
The tongue-in-cheek tag given to the group of high-earners told earlier this summer that they would not play for Dundee United again musters interesting echoes of injustice. The ‘Tannadice Five’ — Grant Brebner, Derek McInnes, Jim McIntyre, David Fernandez and Paul Ritchie — were not falsely imprisoned by their chairman, Eddie Thompson, and the lifestyle their lucrative contracts have afforded them limits one’s sympathy, but nor did they force these agreements to be drawn up while holding pistols to the head of the grocery chain millionaire.
This season starts with Brebner, McInnes and McIntyre gone and Fernandez and Ritchie going. The clearout is primarily a signifier of more stringent times at Tannadice, but it also illustrates a move from the teams of Ian McCall and Gordon Chisholm to that of Craig Brewster.
Up front the presence of the player-manager, Brewster, fit again at 39, overshadows the departure of McIntyre. The skilful and crafty Fernandez has already been replaced by Noel Hunt; quick, athletic and blessed with endless reserves of energy. In midfield two wily pivots, Brebner and McInnes, are usurped by young wingers, Craig Conway, formerly of Ayr, and Steven Robb, from across the way at Dens Park. Both have impressed during pre-season and both fit the Brewster bill. Already you sense a faster, harder-working, more dynamic United this season, and pressure on the players who were fighting for these roles, guys like Lee Miller, Barry Robson and Collin Samuel.
Samuel caught up with his teammates for the first time less than two weeks before the big kick-off. His close season started late and constituted the three weeks at the end of a dream. He sits down still wearing the rubber wristband provided to all players at the World Cup, and is happier talking about his experience with Trinidad and Tobago than the fight he has on his hands to get a game at United, but is soon on to the fresh competition that stands in his way, both up front and on either side of midfield, the three positions he was employed in last season.
“Well, Noel Hunt is injured,” he says. If Miller and Brewster are interchangeable, an injury to Hunt probably pushes Samuel into a second striker slot. “The other two (Robb and Conway) are wingers, both very good players. Robb scored on Wednesday at Forfar, a really good goal. There’s competition all around the team.”
Despite the loss of such experienced players? “Most of us have decided to just get on with our job, put in good performances and hopefully get a place in the top six.”
Samuel has a sprinter’s pace but has been frustrating in possession at times for United. He believes he is only now regaining the confidence he had before his transfer from Falkirk three years ago. “For two years I was down low, my confidence wasn’t there and I wasn’t playing to the standards that I had set,” he says. “Just now, after the World Cup, I feel that I have that confidence coming back.” Samuel’s single performance in Germany, in Trinidad and Tobago’s opening game against Sweden, may have caught his club manager’s eye, Leo Beenhakker’s side playing the kind of high-pressure game Brewster favoured with Inverness. Samuel was effective both ways, closing down Christian Wilhelmsson and using that searing speed on breaks.
“The coach told me to be positive, he believed in me,” recalls Samuel. “He believed in the players and we decided to go on field and do it, to prove that he was right.” Samuel was withdrawn before the hour in Dortmund in a tactical switch following Avery John’s sending off and that was his World Cup. He was disappointed Beenhakker did not unload his attacking arsenal late on against England. “We had a lot of force on the bench,” he says.
The size of their achievement in holding Sweden and doing the same to England until Peter Crouch held the dreadlocks of Brent Sancho is illustrated at the start of this new season, with Crouch at Liverpool, Wilhelmsson at Anderlecht and Samuel at United, possibly on the bench, probably still wearing his wristband. Will he still have it on next May? “Maybe,” he smiles. “Do you think they’ll let me play in it?”
