Stephen Ireland: Berahino would be at work before me and still get fined for being late!

Stephen Ireland made 46 appearances for Stoke under Mark Hughes between 2014-18 and in an exclusive interview with Ladbrokes: Fanzone, he recalls the two seasons when Saido Berahino was at the club.

I’ve heard other players speak about this in the past, but the first person who springs to mind for me when I think about club fines is Saido Berahino at Stoke. I personally got on with him really well, I rated him as a player, but he really doesn’t help himself at times.

It doesn’t take long for managers to dislike him, and you can see it from their point of view, to be fair to them. Saido isn’t a bad guy, he’s rebellious, and there does come a point where he loses his mind and sometimes causes storms on purpose.

But in terms of fines, I’m talking every single day. No matter what, every day for the whole season he’d be late. It’s as if he just hangs outside of the building, looking at his clock, waiting for it to pass a certain time, then he jumps in 30 seconds late. It’s like he wanted to maintain being fined. I just couldn’t understand it. He could come into the training ground before me. I’d pull up and he’d be sitting in his car, on his phone. And then he’ll be late into the building. It’s a 30-yard walk, it made no sense. It was like he’d do it on purpose every single day.

He must have spent so much – the fines were really, really hefty. He was probably spending £500 a day on fines, just for being late.

It was for everything: team meetings, matches, training, getting on the bus… he was late. He must have been spending five or six grand a week on fines alone.

And if you didn’t pay your fine by the next day, it would double and would end up going on to someone else, so all of a sudden, you’ve got other players having to pay double the amount of their fine because Saido hadn’t paid his. The message from the manager was “if you’re getting fined for something, and Saido hasn’t paid for his fine, you’re also paying for it”.

Honestly, he was shockingly bad for it. It was mental.

There was one time in particular which springs to mind actually. We were in – the whole team – on a day off, because of him. We were told to come in on the Sunday after a match, and it was because of Saido. We all came in, Glen Johnson, Peter Crouch… everyone. Some of the boys were travelling from London to Stoke every day for training, so they had to do that on their day off. Everyone turned up but Saido. We’re all in the building, doing our weights, and Saido’s sat at home, just refusing to come in!

I like him a lot, I really rated him. I loved playing with him. He was my kind of striker and I thought we linked up well together. I got on with him and found him funny. I could talk to him in a certain manner and we got on really well. He was a really good guy, I just think he got a lot of things wrong.

He shouldn’t be playing where he’s playing right now. He’s much better than his career in the last five or six years suggests. Looking at him, I think he thought he was invincible. I think he always thought he was going to be alright. Those couple of seasons at West Brom, I think he thought they would carry him for the rest of his career.

But every time summer comes around he’s scrambling for a club now, and ending up in these mental countries. He’s too good for all of that. I think he realised that a little bit too late.

He’s quick, his movement was always so good and, as a finisher, he’s absolutely clinical. I’m talking seriously good at finding the back of the net. I think he knows deep down that he’s let himself down. He shouldn’t be where he is today, no chance. He’s way, way too good for that. He just can’t seem to claw things back, unfortunately, and it’s a shame. It’s a waste of a talent, it really is.

When he came to Stoke, he had such a good opportunity under Mark Hughes. Mark gave him a lifeline, at a Premier League club. We needed a striker, a goalscorer. That was his chance to get his career back on track again. Look at what Mark managed to do with the likes of Marko Arnautovic, Xherdan Shaqiri, Bojan – he had a really good track record of taking a player who was down and out, if you like, and reviving their careers. He did it with me. I played my best football under Mark. I did OK under Sven-Goran Eriksson but I think I struggled a little to find that consistency. But Mark came in and the shackles came off. That was down to him. So Saido came in and we thought ‘here we go, he’s going to get us 20 goals a season, he’s going to be the player we need’, but unfortunately it never worked out.

If I sat him down and told him any of that, he’d look at me as if I was wrong. But I say it all because I care about him, and it’s something he should have taken on board a long time ago… it’s not like people haven’t tried with him. Plenty tried. Maybe he’s too stubborn in his ways, but that’s why he finds himself playing in mental countries now.