These are, confirms Darren Randolph, "exciting" times for the Bray-born goalkeeper whose early-season performances have unexpectedly catapulted him to "contender" status for a starting spot with Ireland this weekend.
The 28-year-old is quick to caution against anyone getting too carried away. "I've still only played two games," he points out when somebody asks does he feel the place is up for grabs. But Ireland's present goalkeeping situation is surely the definition of "up for grabs", with David Forde having lost his place at Millwall and Shay Given, after returning from international retirement, making a club move that looked bound to leave him back on the bench as cover for Jack Butland.
Early opportunity
Randolph moved too over the summer and says that having made just two senior international appearances totalling 62 minutes of game time, his Ireland career (technically, he could still declare for the United States as neither cap was in a competitive game) was not much of a consideration as he weighed up leaving Birmingham for West Ham. Still, the suspension of Adrián presented him with an unexpectedly early opportunity to prove himself which, as they say, he has grabbed with both hands.
“Yeah, it couldn’t have gone better for me: man of the match in one game [against Bournemouth], then a clean sheet and a win away from home [at Liverpool] in the second one. So I like to think I’ve given him [Slaven Bilic rather than Martin O’Neill] a tough decision.”
On the Ireland front, he is cautious, insisting that nobody, least of all him, should get big ideas on the basis of two top-flight experiences, and yet it is clear that O’Neill too suddenly has something to think about.
“We’ll just look to get a good week in and see what happens. Then we’ll see when he produces the team sheets on Friday and Monday. If I’m there: brilliant. If I’m not, it’s still good to be involved.”
Genuinely relaxed
Randolph, the son of American basketball star Ed Randolph, who moved to Ireland during that sport’s boom here and stayed on, seems genuinely relaxed about how the week pans out for him, but then he has already made a lot of progress over the last few years.
It’s almost a decade since he made his debut for Charlton on the last day of the season, also at Anfield, and did well enough to suggest he could live at that level. He stuck with the London club as it slid down the divisions but it was only after moving to Motherwell in 2010 that he started to rediscover his career’s early upward momentum. Since then, he has, via st Andrews, moved slowly but steadily forward again.
“Yeah, it’s taken me a while,” he says with a smile. “It’s been hard work to get back there now so I want to enjoy it.”
