IT’S ONE DAY shy of a year since Nathan Collins dropped jaws in Poland, slaloming his way through the Ukraine team to give Ireland a breathtaking lead in what proved to be a 1-1 Nations League drop.
Collins was set to leave relegated Burnley that summer and the goal was a kind of CV, given it encapsulated all of his many talents: his reading of the game to intercept the ball, his confidence in setting off with it, his comfort in possession as he kept it, and then the glorious gratuity in finishing with the outside of his boot.
Wolves quickly parted with £20.5 million to make Collins the most expensive Irish player since – you guessed it – Robbie Keane.
A year on, and Collins is sitting with journalists in the Irish team hotel reflecting on his brushes with the colder parts of football. He was initially a regular in the Wolves team and a staple of Bruno Lage’s back three. What personal achievement Collins found in that was mantled by the collective turmoil, with Wolves falling down the table, spending Christmas in the bottom place.
Julen Lopetegui came in for Lage and kept Wolves safe, steering them to an admirable 13th place. Collins, however, was dropped from the team, a victim of Lopetegui’s decision to sign 33-year-old Craig Dawson and switch to a back four.
If you put aside his red card against Manchester City and subsequent three-game ban, Collins played every minute of the Premier League season prior to the World Cup and Lopetegui’s appointment. After the World Cup, he started seven of Wolves’ remaining 23 games, only two of which came after Dawson was signed.
“Obviously it was a tough season”, reflects Collins. “We set out targets at the start of the season, personally and as a team. Football is an awkward game, isn’t it? Stuff does not always work out, but the main objective was not to get relegated, and we did that. As a team, as a starting eleven, the whole backroom staff, as a whole club we all chipped in, played our part and stayed up.
“I wasn’t playing as much as I’d like but the club needed me to step into a role that supported the lads. Making sure I was ready as I could be called upon whenever. I just kept myself busy, kept myself ticking over, kept myself ready and was there for the lads whenever they needed me.”
Collins says Lopetegui told him he favoured Dawson’s experience.
“It is obviously tough to take but it is obviously the gaffer’s decision. My job was to train harder, work harder and get myself back into the team. As a person, who I am, I will never give up. I will keep working, I fought as hard as I could.
“The first half of the season was tough for everybody. As a team I don’t think we played to our best. When Lopetegui came in I thought I was playing really well, and at Christmas we got a few good results but he just wanted a chance. There was nothing I could do so, no, I wasn’t overly critical [of myself].
“It was obviously a frustrating time and I did look at what I could be doing better but I had good people behind me, good backing and they were honest with me, saying I was just unfortunate so there was nothing more I could do really.
“I wasn’t really looking at it, like, I need to prove myself. I was being more of a team player. I didn’t want to make it a competitive thing because of the position we were in, I didn’t want another relegation, I didn’t want to go down again so I just said I’d bite the bullet and be a team player. Get on with it.”
Lopetegui took the Wolves job having turned them down in the past, and moved to the Premier League with some gilded names on his CV including Real Madrid and the Spanish national team, the latter the job from which he was infamously fired on the eve of the 2018 World Cup, apparently for having had the temerity to agree to take the Madrid job after the competition. He went on to win the Europa League at Sevilla (as is custom) before he took the Wolves job at the second time of asking.
“He came in at a tough time, we were bottom of the league so I don’t think he could get his full ways across to the team”, says Collins about his manager. “Going back into preseason it will be interesting to see what way he wants to play. I think he will develop the team more. He’s a good guy, hard working, honest, a good man. He’s Spanish, they are hard to read sometimes, they don’t give off a lot. But since he has come in, he has helped the team. Look, he kept us up, we avoided relegation.”
Collins immediate focus is now back on Ireland, as preparations step up for Friday’s Euro 2024 qualifier against Greece in Athens. The 10-day camp in Antalya is part of an extensive – and intensive – preparation regime, with the warm-weather training camp needed to shake off the ring-rust of those whose seasons ended at the start of May and to avoid a repeat of the torpor Ireland brought to defeat against Armenia last year.
“The prep is really crucial”, says Collins. “If we went to Greece without any [warm weather] prep it would be a shock to us all.”
The Championship players in the Irish squad haven’t played a competitive game since at least 8 May, but Collins happily played in Wolves’ last two games of the season.
Ireland are seeking to get their first points of the campaign in Athens on Friday, as they opened with the narrow 1-0 loss to France in March. It might have been different had Collins’ late header not been denied by a superlative Mike Maignan save: Collins was still expressing his disbelief at the save after the full-time whistle.
“It was obviously frustrating, wasn’t it? More for the [lost] point than for me. I got over it quickly as I was back into club football straight away. He is one of the best to be fair, he has had a good season, we will try and get him back next time.”
