IT’S hard to know if this is the second or third coming of Harry Arter in the green jersey, as he hopes to get the nod in Stephen Kenny’s midfield for tomorrow night’s friendly against England at Wembley.
Arter, who made his eagerly awaited international debut against England in Dublin in June 2015, has amassed a meagre 17 caps during that time.
He was flavour of the month for a brief time under Martin O’Neill but missed out on the Euro 2016 finals due to a thigh injury.
In 2018, Roy Keane famously criticised the London-born footballer for allegedly spending too much time on the treatment table rather than out on the pitch.
He didn’t get a look-in during Mick McCarthy’s short reign as the former boss decided to recall Glenn Whelan – a players six years his senior.
And just when it seemed Arter’s stop-start international career had hit the rocks, Stephen Kenny lifted the phone and has given the 30-year-old a new lease of life.
Arter, who moved from newly promoted Fulham to Nottingham Forest in the summer, returned to the fold and emptied the tank in Ireland’s 1-0 defeat at home to Finland last month but did enough in the game to be in contention for a midfield slot tomorrow night.
He said: “If Stephen hadn’t made the call and we hadn’t spoken, I probably wouldn’t be sitting here now.
“It was very much the case that the confidence and belief that I felt he had in me to come back and make a difference, or at least be involved [made up my mind].
“The older you get, the more you really appreciate someone believing in you. That in itself was something that just made me really excited to come along and work with him. And I had watched his U21 teams. They played a really good brand of football and one I can hopefully learn from and help in the same breath.”
In his five games in charge to date, Kenny has rarely had a full midfield deck to choose from.
James McCarthy appears to be the manager’s first-choice midfield anchor but Arter is capable of playing alongside the Crystal Palace man in a 4-2-3-1 formation.
Arter candidly admits that he hasn’t yet produced his best form on the international stage, and hopes he can under the new manager.
“Internationals are always tough because you have a such a large break between games. If you have a bad performance you potentially you could be waiting for four to five months before you can get a run.
“I haven’t been consistently in the team over a period of time, which is obviously disappointing. I’ll be 31 in December but with the way the manager wants to play here, I feel that hopefully suits the way I want to play.
“I think as a group we’ve all kind of welcomed it. We want to be playing a stylish brand of football, we want to try to keep the ball – without losing that fighting spirit that has made us successful over the last five, six, seven years, when you can be hanging on at 0-0 and then nick a winner at the end.
“As much as that does bring success at times, I think for the long-term, and definitely with all the young players coming through, I’m not sure that would be the most successful [approach].
"I feel very excited for all the young lads going to experience a new Ireland in a way, a new way of playing football. For the senior and older lads, it’s about enjoying it while we can. For the games coming up, I know myself and the rest of the group are really looking forward to it.
"The manager is quite an infectious guy, he has the lads very much on board with what he wants to do and there's a real belief in the way he wants us to play."
