Soccer English FA Cup: interview with Colin Cryan: While Claudio Ranieri may struggle to convince some of his more recent arrivals of the importance of this afternoon's FA Cup game at Scarborough for his opposite number, Russell Slade, motivating the players is well down his list of problems.

The home side's players know only too well what it could mean to them to do well against the Londoners and none is hoping for a greater return from the David and Goliath tie than Irish centre back Colin Cryan.

For the 22-year-old from Celbridge the televised encounter with the English game's biggest spenders is a welcome opportunity to play his way into the plans of a league manager who might provide him with first-team football for next season. This will be the last game of a three-month loan spell with the Conference side and with his employers, Sheffield United, going well without him in the English League Division One he knows he's got to make it count.

"It's a big chance because there'll be managers all over the country watching and if I can impress on the day then there's no telling what effect it might have on my career," he says. "Neil Warnock (his manager at United) will be watching too and so it's another chance to show him the sort of form I've been in.

"My deal's up at the end of the season and there's been talk about them maybe offering me another year but to be honest I think I'd probably drop down a division or two to play regularly at this stage. The last couple of months here have been great and with getting so many games I've never felt as good as this before. I want to build on that, managers are always looking for players with experience and so I need to be playing."

There is a fear Cryan and his team-mates could be subjected to the sort of humiliation this afternoon that would not enhance his employment prospects. While not holding out too much hope of an upset at the McCain Stadium, however, the Irishman seems untroubled by the thought that things could go badly wrong for him against the likes of the Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Eidur Gudjohnsen.

"Really I wish they were playing their best strikers because I wouldn't have minded coming up against Crespo," he says. "He's like a little girl," he adds casually, "he doesn't go in hard, he's just a poacher. It looks like he's out, though, and I think Gudjohnsen and Hasselbaink will be harder to handle. But even if we can keep it to a goal then it'll be a great day for us, I mean we have nothing to lose."

At corners Cryan will face the task of containing one of Chelsea's big central defenders, John Terry or Marcel Desailly. "I'm not the biggest myself - I've seen myself described as 5ft 7ins but it's more like 5ft 10ins or 11ins - but I usually take the biggest one of their men at corners and I wouldn't be doing it unless I was fairly good, although," he adds, "I've probably gone and jinxed myself now."

With Ranieri likely to make changes it's questionable how useful watching tapes of Chelsea would be to a group of players who have got this far thanks to a run of three rather more modest upsets. As it happens, though, there's barely been time to study the opposition.

"A lot of the time has been taken up with dealing with all the media attention," he says. "I've even been back home to do some television about it. It's been hectic but you have to enjoy it because it might never happen you again."

Then there's the family and friends to be looked after. "Yeah, I have 36 coming in for the game, I think the next down got eight or nine tickets but I just kept going back to the club with sob stories so in the end I got a lot of my family and friends sorted out."

After the win over Southend in the last round, when Cryan won man of the match, the under-21 international spent a frantic night in Scarborough, but the plan this evening is to head to his home in Sheffield with some mates who are staying over.

"I'm not too sure after that," he says, "I think the loan spell is up on the 28th but I want to get out somewhere again as soon as possible. I said to it to David Kelly, Warnock's assistant manager, and he said I'm well able for the second division so hopefully I'll catch somebody's eye in this game."

Kelly, he says, has been full of encouragement since arriving at the club last year. "He has a lot of time for me but then I remember his goal against England and he's always bringing that up with the English lads. I don't think it counted in the record books," he laughs, "but I can tell you, it counted in his."