Timeless Michael Chopra

[Delima 0]

The Times

 

Good luck Chopra. I would love it if you could score the winner against Spurs

 

Spurs face the Chop

 

Joe Lovejoy

 

Michael Chopra must find scoring form if Cardiff are to win Wednesday’s replay at Tottenham

Memo to Martin Jol: Cardiff City have been training at the Vale of Glamorgan Country Club, the luckiest hotel used by FA Cup finalists in recent years. Cardiff are away to Jol’s Tottenham in a third-round replay on Wednesday and have been using a base that has been talismanic since 2001, when Liverpool stayed there for the Community Shield, Carling Cup and FA Cup finals and won the lot. Before the 2003 FA Cup final, Arsenal and Southampton both wanted the Vale, as it is known. Since then the FA has insisted that finalists toss for the right to prepare there.

 

Conventional wisdom holds that Cardiff missed the boat when they failed to beat their more celebrated opponents at Ninian Park, but the Championship promotion hopefuls believe they can pull off a shock at White Hart Lane. If they are to do so, they will probably need a goal or two from Michael Chopra, the former Newcastle and England Under-21 striker, who had the opportunity to settle it at the first attempt.

 

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Chopra, who celebrated his 23rd birthday on December 23, admits he should have beaten Paul Robinson with what he regarded as the best chance of the original tie, and is anxious to make amends.

 

It was unfortunate for the Welsh club that its chance of glory came at a time when form had deserted it. Seven points clear at the top of the Championship in October, Cardiff lost their way in November and were 10 matches without a win when they took on Spurs last weekend. Chopra personified the decline: he faced Tottenham with just one goal in 11 games, having scored 11 in his first 15 appearances after a £500,000 transfer from Newcastle in June.

 

“We were flying at the start of the season and everyone here had this big belief that we could get promoted,” said Chopra. “I’m not saying that feeling has gone, but there’s a bit lacking at the moment. Once we get a couple of wins under our belt, it will come back, I’m sure. We’ve not been losing many — the Spurs cup tie made it eight draws in 10 — so we haven’t fallen too far behind the top two.

 

“When I came here I set myself a target of 20 goals this season, and I should be there already. I’ve missed some easy chances — the manager (Dave Jones) has told me that — but I still believe I can get past the 20 mark. I should be doing it comfortably at this level. I was going well, then I missed a couple of chances and it got to me. When that happens, you worry about when you’re going to score again. I remember Alan Shearer went through that sort of spell with England before Euro 96 (12 games without a goal) and there was pressure on Terry Venables to drop him. But Alan played and came out top scorer in the tournament.”

 

Shearer is Chopra’s role model, Newcastle his first love. Born and raised on Tyneside, the son of a Gateshead shopkeeper, he was on schoolboy forms at St James’ Park from the age of nine, made his first-team debut at 18 and left with the greatest of reluctance, not long after achieving a boyhood ambition by scoring against the old enemy, Sunderland, last April. If Shearer and Peter Beardsley were his idols, Kenny Dalglish was a mentor.

 

“Kenny was the manager when I was making my way at Newcastle and I got to know him quite well,” Chopra said. “I remember him on the touchline, watching youth team games on a Saturday morning when the first team were at home that afternoon. You could tell how interested he was, not like some managers. He was great for my career, having little chats with me about how to improve my game. Ten seconds with him meant everything to me.”

 

In 1999 Chopra became the first player of Asian descent to play for the England Under-16s. Sir Bobby Robson gave him his first taste of the Premiership in the final match of 2002-3, but the competition, from Shearer, Craig Bellamy, Shola Ameobi and the like was strong. He was loaned out to Watford, then Nottingham Forest, then Barnsley, to gain experience. At Watford he scored five in five league games and reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup, but it was at Barnsley that he got what he had always been striving for — a regular first-team place. Seventeen goals in 39 league games in 2004-5 saw the Yorkshire club try to make the move permanent, but Chopra had unfinished business back at his alma mater, where he thought he could be the new Shearer. Glenn Roeder did not agree, and that goal at the Stadium of Light in April proved to be the young wannabe’s swansong.

 

Leaving his hometown club after 13 years was a terrible wrench. “I was sad because I’d always supported Newcastle, never wanted to play for anybody else, but I came to a stage in my career where I had to make a decision. Did I want to be on the bench, playing one game in five, or did I want to start every week? I decided I’d take one step back in the hope of taking two forward. I believe in fate, and that dropping down a division offers my best chance of getting back in the Premiership, either with Cardiff or a different club. One day I hope to go back to Newcastle as the main striker, that’s my ambition.”

 

With that in mind, fate dealt him an ironic hand. “I was on holiday in Dubai, ringing my agent to find out which clubs were interested in me. After that, I landed back in London and came straight to Cardiff on the train. When I met Dave Jones he sold the club to me really well and I made up my mind. Two days later Michael Owen was injured at the World Cup and Newcastle were calling, wanting to know, ‘Have you signed yet or can you come back?’ I hadn’t signed, but I’d given my word and I wouldn’t go back on that. It was too late.”

 

There were no regrets as Chopra and Cardiff charged out of the starting blocks. The young Geordie particularly enjoyed his two goals in the 2-1 win at Sunderland in October.

 

What has gone wrong? “Lack of confidence. As a team, it’s only in the past couple of games that we’ve got back to what we were doing at the start of the season. Then we played nice one-touch football. Now we were taking two or three touches where it should be one or two. Against Spurs we showed that on our day we can match some big Premiership teams. Given the chances we had in the first half, we should have beaten them. We knew Spurs weren’t great travellers and that if we got at them, right in their faces from the start, they wouldn’t like it. I didn’t see anything outstanding in any of their players. We didn’t allow them any time on the ball to hurt us.

 

“We gave as good as we got, and we’ll do the same in the replay. If we play to our potential, with belief, we’ve got a good chance of going through, and the next round is against Barnsley or Southend, which is an incentive. We know we’re capable of beating either of them because we’ve already done it in the league this season, and then it would be the fifth round, when it starts to get big-time.”

 

What price Newcastle away?

[Bombadil 0]

Same here, that would be fantastic.