Manchester City midfielder Stephen Ireland has revealed how a knee injury saw him miss out on a move to Celtic as a teenager.

Like Roy Keane, he played for the Cobh Ramblers club as a teenager and received invitations for trials from 22 British clubs when he was only 12.

"But I had this problem on my knee," he told the Daily Mail. "My muscles were outgrowing my bones. If my trousers rubbed against it or if I knocked it against a table I would be in agony, in bed for days. But I still played.

"The physios told me to take three months off but I just couldn't. I wanted to get to England to play football. I was having trials every weekend, always a different team. I was exhausted. I went to 11 trials of the 22. I went to Celtic but my knee was so bad I couldn't play. I just walked round for four days.

"Eventually City just felt like the right club. I was supposed to come when I was 17 but came at 15 to get a head start. But still the knee problem was there, nagging at me, stopping me.

"I had it for the first two or three years I was at City. I would have two weeks in the club then a month out. The staff at the academy said they were going to wrap me up in cotton wool and I hardly played for the first two years. It turned out to be the best thing to do."