HAVING SIGNED FOR Aston Villa during Martin O’Neill’s tenure, any number of sliding-doors moments may have seen Samir Carruthers emerge as a senior star for Ireland instead of most likely being remembered as ‘the idiot who urinated in a pint glass’ as the midfielder succinctly put it.
Eligible to play for Italy and Morocco in addition to his native England thanks to his family heritage, Carruthers instead opted to take advantage of the grandparent rule to pursue an international career with Ireland as a schoolboy.
Having started out with Cambridge United as an under-10, he moved to Arsenal after the former club’s academy was disbanded. After five years in the Gunners’ youth set-up, a 16-year-old Carruthers had broken into the under-18s squad but he again had a number of options.
While offers from Arsenal and Fulham were on the table, Carruthers signed with Aston Villa.
Ironically, O’Neill was at the helm at Villa Park at that time but no matter what the current Ireland boss may have seen in the talented Londoner it is unlikely to be enough to outweigh the impression formed by the 22-year-old’s antics at the Cheltenham Festival any time soon.
A member of the Ireland under-19 side that reached the 2011 European Championships semi-final, Carruthers went on to earn caps at U21 level and he displayed real promise at Villa, making progress with the club’s youth and reserve sides and eventually earning his senior debut before captaining the under-19s to success in the European NextGen Series in 2013.
That achievement came just three days before his 20th birthday and six months later he was off on a youth loan to MK Dons, a move which would eventually be made permanent on a three-year deal some 12 months after he first appeared for the club.
Jumping from the Premier League to League One was a pragmatic move which appeared to pay off with MK Dons’ promotion to the Championship, and prior to admonishing him over his racing indiscretions this week club boss Karl Robinson had praised Carruthers as a ‘top player’ who was bound to eventually return to top-flight football.
With the Dons teetering just one point above the Championship relegation zone, such a revival appears as unlikely as a Euro 2016 call-up from Martin O’Neill, however.
Carruthers has only featured for 90 minutes in two of his last five club outings and studying his own form may have been a wiser priority ahead of his unadvised Cheltenham adventure.
