What do you put your form down to this season?
“I’m not sure really, I think the team is playing well and it makes it easy for any player to be honest. When you’re playing in a good team you play well yourself and you just enjoy your football.
“I think in the past I’ve had injuries and coming back from them hasn’t been too easy and I had to be patient obviously not being in the team for a long time and I think the major thing is the belief in your own ability to be honest and when you get given the opportunity then you’ve got to be ready to take it and that’s what it comes down to.
“There was a lot of talk about me going on loan and I don’t know if anything was ever going to happen. Benoit Assou Ekotto got injured, I got my chance and I’ve been prepared for a while, doing a lot of running after training just to get ready. My chance came and I was there to take it”.
“After training I used to stay behind and do a bit more running with a few of the other lads and you do extra because if you’re not playing you’ve got a lot of energy and I think you need to keep fit. As I say when people do get injured that you’ve got to be ready and willing to take your chance.”
Harry Redknapp says that Spurs have as much chance to win the title as anyone else. Are you guys confident in the dressing room?
“I think we are a lot more confident now, obviously qualifying for the Champions League and a string of good results in the league. I think we’ve all got more belief that we can compete up there with the best teams and we will be working our hardest to do that. I definitely feel like all of the lads feel like we’ve got the kind of squad that is capable of being up in the mix and you never know hopefully we can be in there with a shot.”
“I think we were all striving for that position last year and I think now that we’re there I think a lot of us believe that we are capable of doing it now. We’re going out there and trying to produce what we know we can. We’re not chasing things now, so we know, we definitely know that we’ve got the ability in the team to do well and we’ve just got to prove it now.
“We go into every game looking to get a win and especially at home. We are all confident of beating anybody at home as we showed last season against Arsenal and Chelsea and this year the likes of Inter Milan so we’re all confident that we can win games.”
What went through your mind during that Inter Milan game when you scored a hat-trick?
“Well we went down to ten men early and were pegged back in our own half for long periods of the game and whenever we did have a chance to go forward I think we just had to go for it and I’d seen space high up in their pitch because they were pushed into our half. There was space to run into so I just went for it and as soon as I had a sight of goal I just went for it.”
You are one of the most talked about players across the world at the moment. You must be happy?
“I’m happy, I think the main thing is playing every week, I mean obviously I was playing week in week out at Southampton and I proved a lot and I find if I’m playing week in week out I’ve proven myself as a player and I want to continue to do that and yeah it’s obviously great when you’re performing well and doing well. The main thing is to just keep working hard and keep striving to improve and get better.”
What is your preferred position in the team?
“I don’t know to be honest I think I’m just happy playing wherever. I enjoy playing left full back or on the wing and it’s kind of up to the manager wherever he plays me and wherever I play I’ll give 110%. It doesn’t really make a difference to me.”
You don’t do many interviews, is there any reason?
“No I just want to keep it low key and concentrate on my football.”
