Surgenor admits he’s playing for United future

The homegrown United star has been reduced to a bit-part player in recent months, and his contract expires in the summer.

Surgenor has made the majority of his appearances under Ferguson as a substitute, but he took advantage of a rare start to produce an eye-catching performance in Saturday’s 2-2 draw with Donegal Celtic.

“Glenn has spoken to me (about a new contract) and told me it’s going to be sorted, but it’s up to me to put the performances in to merit it.

“If I don’t merit it, I would be the first person to put my hand up and say I’m not good enough, but I’m going to dig deep and do a lot of soul-searching myself.

“I believe that my performances from November onwards and the Shield final haven’t warranted a new contract, so I have to prove to myself as well as Glenn and the coaching staff that I’m capable of it and they don’t doubt me.

“There’s no other place I want to be. I don’t even joke about it, I’ve said that if I left here, the next place I would go would be Braid United.

“I can’t see myself playing for any other club at the top level – I just don’t know if my heart would be in it, and that’s the way I play, with my heart on my sleeve.

“It was good to be back in the team on Saturday. The last five or six weeks have been a time where I have felt probably at my lowest in football, confidence-wise.

“Glenn has put me on half an hour here, 15 minutes there and I haven’t looked like a player that should even be on the pitch. I made a wee request to go and play for the Reserves a couple of weeks, and Glenn let me go and I think that game was the best thing that happened to me.

“I’ve been trying to get a wee bit fitter, trying to do a bit on my own as well as training with the team.

“I’ve been coming in to training not making it a chore, but coming wanting to do better.

“It’s difficult training knowing that you won’t be playing on Saturday because you don’t warrant a place, but now I have a real confidence, and I want to push on until the end of the season.

“No-one backs me more at this club than the manager and the coaching staff, but they would probably say it, and I agree, they need more out of me – it’s a question of getting onto the pitch and doing it.”

The only dark cloud for Surgenor on Saturday was that United failed to win, after conceding an injury-time equaliser.

“We have to hold on in those situations.

“We picked ourselves up from last week so I suppose it’s a step forward in one respect, but it shows we’re a bit fragile and we need to be a bit more street-wise in situations like that.

“Glenn said to us at half-time that 2-0 is the worst lead in football and that’s how it proved.

“We should have been more professional and seen the game out but we were maybe looking for something special to happen rather than putting our foot on the ball.

“We could still get our highest points total in the Premier League but what’s more saddening is that we didn’t push on where we could have in November after we won the Shield,” added Mark.