“It’s a big club and there’s a lot of focus on it,” Parker adds “I noticed that straight away. At Charlton, if, after two games, we hadn’t done so well nobody would have really noticed. For one reason or another the manager didn’t fancy me.” Perhaps, Parker wonders, it was because he wasn’t one of the Portuguese manager’s signings. Now he has Graeme Souness, and “I feel that he’s not going to pay £6.5m if he doesn’t like me. It’s a massive help, running out knowing that he believes in me and knows what he’s going to get from me”. “The main reason [for choosing Newcastle],” he says, “was just for me to play football again and to play on a big stage. I just felt this was the best place.”Parker believes he left Chelsea “not feeling that I’ve failed.

I didn’t play a lot there, and when I did, especially under Mourinho, I thought I did well But it wasn’t meant to be. I would have just said, ‘I’m going to give it a go again at Chelsea.” Newcastle – as well as Everton, Tottenham Hotspur and Wigan Athletic, yesterday’s opponents – came calling There was, Parker states, no contest. I was looking at myself, looking at the situation, and obviously I realised my chances were going to be limited. I could have stayed there, but I’m the sort of fella who just wants to play.”But it had to be the right club, otherwise “I wouldn’t have left. He says: “There are a lot of positives I can take as well as the disappointments There was also a lot of hard thinking. “You have to play unbelievably well to have any sort of chance of even being selected for the next game.”But I put pressure on myself as well, and I think you see that with some of the other lads at Chelsea You want to impress the manager. When you run out there that’s what you think: ‘How can I do that?’ “The injury, the whole Chelsea experience, meant Parker “learnt so much”.

“There’s much more pressure when you get selected for a game having not played,” he says. “Then I came on for the last 15 minutes against Norwich and broke my foot.”It was the week before Christmas His first major injury. Not only that but, 10 weeks later, just as he was “pushing on” in his rehabilitation, he broke his foot again. His season was over.His confidence, he says, did not suffer, but maybe Chelsea just wasn’t to be. Parker certainly offers a fascinating insight into what it’s like at the world’s wealthiest club.

“I was brought in for my first Premiership start against Blackburn [in October 2004], which we won 4-0,” he recalls.Suddenly it was picking up. “I’d played two games and he [Mourinho] said I was playing the next game as well.” Back-to-back starts At last Just what he had yearned for “It hadn’t happened before,” he says “It was really good.” Parker could feel the rhythm return. “When you look at my three years prior to Chelsea, I was playing some really good football and doing really well. I suppose when I first went to Chelsea and then last year, when I wasn’t playing, people forgot about me.”The arrival of Mourinho left Parker in no doubt where he stood – “that I’d be understudy to Claude [Makelele]” So, when the Frenchman was injured or rested, Parker played.

It came shortly after he had, like a force of nature, destroyed the Italian’s side on Boxing Day at The Valley.Despite the competition, and Ranieri’s tinkering, Parker, popular with fans and team-mates, did well But he simply didn’t play enough. It’s about getting that chance.”That is something that bad luck with injuries – and lack of opportunity – denied him at Chelsea, where he was bought from Charlton Athletic two Januarys ago by Claudio Ranieri for £10 million. I’ve not been in an England squad for a long time, and when I have I’ve come on 10 minutes here and there, so I’m not exactly proven.” But he adds: “I feel that I could easily step up and give it a go. At that time Sven Goran Eriksson predicted Parker would be the next to break through, and only last week his name was mentioned again.But Parker says: “I’m a realist.