Danny has to face toughest decision

Sep 19 2009 by Luke Edwards, The Journal

Danny Simpson is confident Newcastle United will get their season back on track against Plymouth as he tries to do something similar with his own career at St James's Park. Chief Sports Writer Luke Edwards reports

THERE are few more alluring clubs in world football than Manchester United, with its history, its glamour and its prestige – and perhaps that is the problem for Danny Simpson.

Unless your name is Cristiano Ronaldo or David Beckham, Manchester United is the club where players are asked to move on rather than ask to leave. It is the sort of club where players can be forgiven for fearing any move will be a step down.

Yet, it is also the sort of club where young players can go stale, where talent can go to waste in the reserves and home-grown produce from the Academy can be left to rot.

Coming through the ranks at Old Trafford is a gift and a curse. On one hand you are playing for the most famous club in the world with the best facilities surrounded by some of the Premier League’s best players.

On the other, you are trying to break into one of the best first-team squads in Europe where millions of pounds are available to recruit the best players from around the world – and opportunities to impress are largely limited to the odd Carling Cup tie.

In four years as a first-team player at Old Trafford, Simpson has made just nine senior appearances, of which only four have been starts. His football education has continued elsewhere, with Royal Antwerp in Belgium, Sunderland, Ipswich and, for much of last season, Blackburn Rovers.

Last month, the 22-year-old moved to Newcastle United and the full-back realises the time has almost come for him to make the most difficult decision of his young career. Into the final year of his contract at Manchester United, he may have to accept that he is never going to make it with the reigning champions.

“I’ve probably had more loans than anyone else in the country over the last couple of years,” said Simpson, in a broad Manchester accent befitting of his Salford background. “Hopefully all the loan spells will do me good in the long run.

“I haven’t thought too much about the long term. I’m enjoying my football here and I feel comfortable here, but I’m not making any big decisions about my future. We’ll see what happens in January.

“At the moment, I’m just glad to be playing first team football again.”

Jealousy and envy are ugly emotions. Nevertheless, they are also impossible to ignore as Simpson has discovered since he spent five successful months on loan at Sunderland.

Looking to maintain a promotion push in the Championship, Roy Keane returned to his former club in January 2007 to sign Simpson and centre-back Jonny Evans on loan.

The pair did an excellent job for the Black Cats and returned to Manchester United older, wiser and ready for first-team football. Both got fleeting chances in the starting XI, but Evans eventually returned to Sunderland for another five-month stint as the Wearsiders successfully avoided relegation in search of more experience. It was a pivotal moment.

Simpson explained: “I’ve been frustrated at times because I went back to Manchester United and it looked as though I was going to get my break into the first team.

“I went to Sunderland with Jonny Evans and we both really benefited from it and did well there. There was talk of us both going back the next year, but you can only loan one player from another Premier League club, and it ended up being Jonny because Roy wanted a centre-back most.

“He got his Premier League experience playing every week for them. I stayed at United and got my seven, eight, nine games there and things were going pretty well for me.

“I still needed to go out and get that regular Premier League experience so I went out on loan again to Blackburn last season.

“But when Johnny came back, he’d already got that and he has done brilliantly since then. He’s not looked back. I’m not taking anything away from him, he’s a close mate of mine and he’s a top player. However, it’s a thin line in football sometimes, he got that break at the right time.

“I’m really happy for him, but I’ve had to take a different route and I’ve needed to go out on loan again.”

There is frustration there, although he hides it well. His move to Newcastle this season, for all of the club’s problems off the pitch, has invigorated him – you suspect he would accept a permanent move if the offer comes in January.

He said: “My career has been up and down since then, but coming to Newcastle, it feels like my career is back on the up again. I hope so because this is a great club to play for.

“It’s a massive club. I knew what the people were like up here and how passionate they were about football from my time at Sunderland, but this has been a shock to me still.

“It’s a good thing for a footballer to know the fans will be out in their thousands and they really care about what happens out on the pitch. The whole city does.

“I don’t think anyone expected so many fans to still turn up at St James’s Park this season after relegation, but they’ve been back in their thousands.

“It’s incredible and I think that it just re-enforces what a big club this is.”