The appointment on Monday of Gary Darrell as Bermuda's new national soccer coach allows me to make amends for comments I made a decade ago.

I was part of the national team under Gary in the early 1990s and was involved in the World Cup qualifying campaign for the 1994 tournament in the USA.

After Gary put me on the bench for the final qualifier against Canada I said some things about him and his coaching methods that I now regret.

I believe I said that I would never play for Gary again or words to that effect.

Ten years on I look back and believe I was young and naive to have said such things.

At the end of the day he took Bermuda to a point that no one else has, either before or since, and he should have the respect that that warrants.

After what I said, do I have respect for Gary? Yes.

Would I be prepared to play for him? Again, Yes. That is not a problem to me.

The things I said came at a time when maybe I thought I knew it all.

Now I am older I realise how stupid and naive I was.

I sit here now and think ‘Who do you think you were to say that?'

No matter what the situation was then, no one player is bigger than the team or his country.

At the time I had been in England for a while. I had gone from playing as an amateur for North Village to playing professionally in the English league for Rotherham United.

The comments I made read now as if they were from someone who was believing all the hype about themselves.

They were said out of the frustration of not being picked to start but now I realise that those are just the decisions that managers make.

It is something I have had to deal with only recently when my manager at Manchester City, Kevin Keegan, decided to play young Chris Shuker ahead of me in the Blackburn game.

Afterwards the manager commented on how my attitude was spot-on and that I hadn't made a fuss.

Sometimes as players you cannot understand why a manager may do this or that but you just have to go out there and get your head down and do your best.

No one has the right to say they should start any game. It is something I didn't realise at the time but with age and maturity I have come to respect.

I understand that Gary said he would be happy to consider myself and Kyle Lightbourne for the national programme, but stressed that the emphasis would be placed upon the youth.

That, as far as I am concerned, is a direction that I wholeheartedly agree with.

I say that not just because Kyle and I are advancing in age - even when we were say 27 and in our prime we should have been looking at who was coming through, who could be groomed to follow in our footsteps.

I wish Gary all the best and I hope he can lead us to even greater success the second time around.

As you will have heard I was ruled out of City's game against West Ham at the weekend through injury.

I was training on Wednesday when I pulled my groin. That was really disappointing because I had a feeling that I would have started on Saturday.

Having come on against Blackburn and staked my claim by scoring the equaliser I thought I might be given a chance. So the injury came at the worst possible time.

I didn't know I would be ruled out when I did it. It wasn't until I saw the physio and he said ‘I don't think you'll be fit for Saturday' and then he said ‘I don't think you'll probably be fit for the next game'. When he said that I thought ‘Woah!'

I am normally a fast healer and while I thought I'd miss the West Ham game I did think I might be ready for the next one against Liverpool.

Right now I am at the 50-50 stage. Today and tomorrow are the big days for me and will probably decide whether I am available or not.

After I sustained the injury I had a lot of treatment from the physio and yesterday I went out for my first run.

Today I'll be doing more activity, sprinting, checking and all those sort of things.

Whether I am available for full training tomorrow and subsequently for selection on Saturday will be determined by how well things go, so fingers crossed.