I COULD DO WITH A FEW SCRUFFY GOALS: TOWNSEND
ANDROS Townsend delivered a blisteringly honest self-appraisal as he reflected on the last couple of years of his career. There were times, he admits, when standards dropped, selfdoubt crept in and he was unsure where it might lead.
Flickers of brilliance at Newcastle were soured by relegation and he stuttered through an awkward start at Crystal Palace before issuing a reminder of his quality with a thrilling goal at West Bromwich Albion earlier this month.
Townsend won possession on the edge of his own penalty area and dashed the length of the Hawthorns pitch, throwing elaborate step-overs as he jinked his way into the Albion box.
He slammed in his second Palace goal – six months after the first – and flopped, exhausted, on to his back, disappearing under jubilant teammates as a grin creased his face. The magic was back.
“I’m on the right track,” said Townsend. “I’m settled and playing well. The fans and the players have warmed to me.
“I have the support of the staff and the fitness coach has got me in the best shape of my life.
“Everything is set up for me. Hopefully I can make it a long and successful time at Crystal Palace.”
That is bad news for Rafa Benitez, who is hoping to lure him back to Newcastle.
“I had a difficult six months at Palace,” said Townsend. “I wasn’t anywhere near the standard expected of a player who signed for £13 million.
“I was brought in to replace Yannick Bolasie and I don’t know why I couldn’t perform to the levels I am now and I know I am capable of. I was working hard and it just wasn’t happening.
“When you play bad, you come off after 60 minutes and you get less confident. You’re not getting 90 minutes and you lose fitness. It’s like a roll-on effect.
“I tend to dwell on things. I have a bad weekend, I won’t talk much and it rolls into the next week. You get stuck in a sort of rut. You kind of blame yourself.”
A frank exchange with Sammy Lee, Sam Allardyce’s assistant manager with England who joined him at Palace in January, jolted Townsend back to his senses.
“He pulled me to one side and had strong words,” said Townsend. “I’ve had a massive realisation that things needed to change.
“He said with England, I trained every day like it was a cup final. I was the hardest working player because I knew others were ahead of me and in the first week he was at Palace I wasn’t doing that.
“He said he wanted to see the Andros he saw with England. That’s what I did. I had to wait patiently for my chance in the team and when it came, I took it. “I said, ‘I needed you to tell me that’ and Sammy said, ‘You shouldn’t’.
“He’s right but I needed that conversation. From there, I’ve got better. I’m in a good place again and I thank Sammy for that.”
The goal at West Brom was fabulous proof. Was it his best ever? “Up there, yeah.”
Up there? What compares with it?
“One for Spurs when I ran from similar distance against Swansea.
“For England against Italy and Montenegro. One for Leyton Orient against Yeovil when I ran the length of the field. I actually want to score more of the scruffy goals that get you five extra a season, rather than one amazing goal every three or four months.”
Wingers are prone to fluctuations of form and confidence. Townsend’s rhythm was also disrupted by the search for another place to call home after 16 years at Tottenham fizzled to an ignominious end, playing for the Under 21s against Liverpool at Chester’s Deva Stadium.
“It was a weird one,” said Townsend. “I knew I had to move on and to make a positive impact at my next club I knew I had to be playing. So I asked the manager if I could play in the Under 21s.
“Then it was about getting my fitness up. But there were games when I wasn’t even standing out for the U21s and I’m thinking, ‘Where’s my career going here?’
“Thankfully, I was given the chance at Newcastle and got back to playing the football I knew I was capable of.”
His Spurs exit was tarnished by a bust-up with fitness coach Nathan Gardiner during a postmatch warm-down at White Hart Lane, having sat through another game as an unused substitute. Teenage winger Josh Onomah was sent on instead.
“I think that was the first realisation I may have to move away,” he said. “Coming so soon after the game, the emotion got the better of me and I made a huge mistake.
“Obviously, you can’t push a fitness coach. But we had that sort of love-hate relationship where we were always joking with each other. It went a bit too far. I took my frustration out in the wrong way. We’re all humans. I’m sure everyone has had a bad day at work and taken it out on the wrong person.
“That was an incident like that. I was disciplined but the manager understood where it came from. He included me back in the firstteam fold after that.”
Even so, leaving Tottenham was tough.
“It was a club I’d been at since I was eight and I had supported for my whole life,” said Townsend. “Being a Spurs boy, I wanted to stay my whole career. But, professionally, I had to think about where my career was going and break away. I had to take my heart out of the decision.”
Some sparkling displays for Newcastle revived his England career. He was in the 26-man provisional squad for Euro 2016 but missed the cut and moved on after relegation. “I was signed to help them stay up and it didn’t happen,” he said. “It’s the one negative about my move there.”
The flying wingers, who have become a Palace trademark, are back in the groove. Wilfried Zaha’s virtuoso goal for Ivory Coast against Russia rivalled Townsend’s at West Brom for flamboyance. But while one Palace winger has opted against England, the other is determined to break back in.
“Wilf or no Wilf it’s very difficult,” said Townsend, who received no call from Gareth Southgate to soften the blow of his omission from games against Germany and Lithuania.
“I spoke to him a few months ago when he came to speak to Wilf and he said he’s been pleased with me when I’ve joined up and that I’m part of a bigger group.
“You see lots of top players coming through. Nathan Redmond is the latest and Demarai Gray is going to be the next one.
“Competition is high but you wouldn’t expect anything else from a nation like England. Consistency at Crystal Palace gets me back in that squad.” – Daily Mail