6 days ago
Ireland's Jason Knight 'relaxed' about prospect of Premier League football
Jason Knight has already been on holiday. The midfielder will squeeze in another once this week's international window closes and yet football could well force itself back into the conversation again before the English club season returns.
Still only 24, the Dubliner played 150 times for Derby County before moving to Bristol City two years ago. Already captain at Ashton Gate, he could hardly have done more during a season just gone that produced 51 appearances, three goals, as many assists and ten yellow cards.
Named player of the year by his club, his teammates and by the supporters, he opted for humility when describing the campaign merely as a 'progression', but Ireland assistant John O'Shea got it right when suggesting that other clubs must be taking notice.
The man himself is playing it cool.
'I've had a good season, I'm enjoying myself at Bristol, but you are right: I want to be ambitious. I want to play in the top division, but I'm relaxed. If it's now or in the future, that will be. I've just got to keep performing well to get to that point.'
One of the few Championship players in the Ireland squad this week due to Heimir Hallgrimsson's decision to rest players subject to that league's heavy workload, Knight has already played 279 games of senior football between the club and international games.
It's nearly six years since his first run with Derby.
John Egan spoke on the 'Second Captains' podcast recently about his regret at having played through the pain barrier to the extent he did, and of the consequences arising from that. Knight played in every game for his club last season, from mid-August through to mid-May. This is the job.
It does beg the question as to how much football is too much football in an era where more and more is being asked of professional players. And there may be no league more brutal in its incessant demands than the twice-a-week every week second tier in England.
Knocks and niggles are par for the course in that sort of environment but if there is a line that shouldn't be crossed when it comes to playing through injury then what might Knight's be?
'If the leg isn't off, I suppose.'
A vocal presence on the field and in the dressing-room, he was one among that batch of youngsters promoted to senior international football in one go, or close enough, by Stephen Kenny and he has long since gone about stepping up to a type of leadership role with Ireland.
Hallgrimsson has already spoken about the benefit that he can reap from this wholesale injection of youth, and Knight agrees that there is a sense of training wheels having been relegated to the shed ahead of a new World Cup qualifying campaign in the autumn.
'There's probably eight, nine, ten of us that have come in at the same time and now we have 20-plus caps [each] so that is only going to be the to the benefit of the team and the country. The performances have to back that up as well, and the results.
'That's what we are going to have to try and do coming in to September.'
