‘I would get more credit with a fancy French name’
‘I think that it’s frowned upon to come through lower divisions’
Glenn Murray is clear about what he is. “I’m an out-and-out striker,” he says. “It’s my job to hold the ball up, to get in the box and to score goals. And, yes, I keep count.” Four Premier League goals after his return to fitness, and four in four games, have helped Brighton to ninth place in their first Premier League campaign as they prepare to face Manchester United away tomorrow.
It is interesting, though, to hear the way Murray classifies himself. Why does he use the term out-andout striker? “I am what I am,” Murray explains. “I can’t change that. No, sometimes it seems unfashionable and I think it’s unfashionable for an Englishman to be like that but if you have a foreign name – someone like Olivier Giroud – he’s exactly what an archetypal English centreforward is. He’s big, he’s strong, he holds the ball up, he gets in the box and scores headers and goals. Because he’s got a fancy French name he’s viewed differently to, say, a Troy Deeney.
“With me, and Troy, we’ve come through the divisions, and don’t get me wrong, everyone likes that story. But I think it’s also frowned upon, whereas I think there’s a lot of talent in the lower divisions who can score goals in the Premier League, given the opportunity. And who is the best striker in the Premier League? Harry Kane. And he’s done it. He was obviously at Tottenham during all of it but he went on loan to the lower leagues to learn his trade first.”
Murray has plied his trade. He has earned his spurs. He has always scored goals, and plenty of them. At outposts such as Barrow and Rochdale, but also in the Premier League, previously with Crystal Palace and Bournemouth, although it was his frustration there that led him back to Brighton, first on loan and then permanently last January.
Again it is instructive to hear Murray explain why. “I came back at what felt like the right time,” he says. “I had obviously watched from afar with it being my former club and still living in the area. And for them to go so close [to promotion] the year before, the
‘Deep down, I believed if given a chance in the Premier League I could score’
only doubt in my mind was whether it would be a positive or a negative effect on them. As soon as I joined I realised it was a positive effect and they were determined to go again.
“I look at my supply line. I know what I am now. I need balls put in the box and I need chances to be created for me.
“At Crystal Palace, I had Wilfried Zaha and Yannick Bolasie who created for me and here, before I came, I saw Jiri Skalak putting great balls in, I saw Anthony Knockaert,
Solly March, Jamie Murphy. I thought ‘those guys can create chances for me’. It really was a no-brainer.”
It sounds like a mature decision. “Well, I’m quite old!” the 34-year-old says.
“I think after my Bournemouth move … I maybe didn’t think about that. I felt I could fit into the Bournemouth way of playing but it wasn’t to be and I think when a moves works out badly, like that, through no one’s fault, and I’m stuck in the stands on a Saturday afternoon, you begin to think ‘oh, the next move is very, very important’. Because if you go somewhere else and you are in the stands again you become forgotten about. As soon as you stop playing games your name’s not about.”
Murray had been at Brighton before, leaving under freedom of contract in 2011, with the club celebrating their return to the Championship and looking forward to their first season at the Amex Stadium, after finally leaving the ramshackle Withdean.
“That crowning moment was going to be the opening day at the Amex,” Murray says, although a new contract could not be agreed. “I just felt at that time the club did not have a huge desire to keep me, they did try but I wasn’t bowled over by it and it just felt right for both parties to go our separate ways,” Murray explains. To make matters worse for Brighton fans, he joined Palace.
They say never go back? “They do. But that hasn’t burnt me yet!” Murray, a cult hero at both clubs, says. “But I think there’s always the right time. Bobby [Zamora] came back [to Brighton] and it went well for him as well.”
Did it feel different? “It was like a whole new club,” Murray says. “It’s a funny one, really, because I was in the squad that got promoted out of League One and into the Championship which then led into the Amex. I was part of the group that was getting tours around the Amex and watching it grow.”
He adds: “The chairman Tony Bloom has invested heavily and very shrewdly. We have a fantastic state-of-the-art training ground and stadium. That’s what I mean by ready-made for the Premier League. But I also think he’s done it the right way and he’s not tried to buy his way.
“You see a lot of Championship clubs spending money and sometimes they get it right, sometimes they get it wrong. But he’s done it wisely – players like Shane Duffy, for £4.5million, that was a great signing.”
And Murray? Did he feel he had unfinished business? “Yes, definitely,” he says. “I felt leaving and as the club’s top scorer and for whatever reason …”
He got his first Premier League goal this season, scoring twice in fact, in the 3-0 win at West Ham. “I was injured and all through that time I got questioned quite a lot,” he says, amid the claims that Brighton did not have the necessary firepower to survive in the top flight. “But, deep down, I believed that if I was given that chance in the Premier League I could score goals. I believed the players around me could create for me and it’s then just about hitting the target.”
Four in four is, therefore, just a good start. “It’s all right,” Murray says. “But it wouldn’t be great if it ended up four in 24, so it’s an ongoing process … But I really do appreciate it because I have worked at every level and to be in the Premier League at 34, I think it’s a really good achievement from where I started.”