[Niles Crane]

Another African footballer who has his head screwed on straight is Benoit Assou-Ekotto, as this rather brilliant and refreshingly honest interview in The Guardian today shows:

Some select parts:

"If I play football with my friends back in France, I can love football," he says. "But if I come to England, where I knew nobody and I didn't speak English … why did I come here? For a job. A career is only 10, 15 years. It's only a job. Yes, it's a good, good job and I don't say that I hate football but it's not my passion.

"I arrive in the morning at the training ground at 10.30 and I start to be professional. I finish at one o'clock and I don't play football afterwards. When I am at work, I do my job 100%. But after, I am like a tourist in London. I have my Oyster card and I take the tube. I eat.

"I don't understand why everybody lies. The president of my former club Lens, Gervais Martel, said I left because I got more money in England, that I didn't care about the shirt. I said: 'Is there one player in the world who signs for a club and says, Oh, I love your shirt?' Your shirt is red. I love it. He doesn't care. The first thing that you speak about is the money.

"Martel said I go to England for the money but why do players come to his club? Because they look nice? All people, everyone, when they go to a job, it's for the money. So I don't understand why, when I said I play for the money, people were shocked. Oh, he's a mercenary. Every player is like that."

What of his relationship with Tottenham team-mates? "I have a good feeling with [Aaron] Lennon and [Jermain] Defoe, more these two players but I have a feeling with everybody. I have a problem with nobody. But I have nobody on the phone, except [Adel] Taarabt, who is on loan at QPR and I know from Lens. I only call him. I don't call footballers in my team. I don't believe in friendships in football."

"I knew for a fact that I didn't like school and I also knew that I didn't want to work in an office where I would be paid €1,500-a-month and, at the end of my career, be able to buy a little suburban apartment or something," he says. "Where it became definitive for me was at 16, when I was expelled from school because I was no longer paying attention. I had nothing to fall back on and this forms part of my attitude to football. I give it my very best, being as efficient and professional as possible, because it's all that I have."

"With Harry, it's cool. We don't speak a lot and he doesn't care if I smile or if I know who the next team we play is. If I do my job well, it's OK. He is doing simple things that the previous two managers couldn't even think of. He is straightforward and he doesn't play games."

Before South Africa Assou-Ekotto is on the brink of history with Tottenham. They entertain Bolton Wanderers this afternoon, with a place in next season's Champions League within their grasp. "It would be good for the team, the club and the supporters … they'd enjoy it," he says. "But for me, it would be just another set of games. When we play Liverpool and Chelsea, it's like the Champions League anyway so for me …"

Assou-Ekotto shrugs. It is only a job.

I'd heard rumours that he didn't really like football and this confirms it. I'm sure his attitude irks some people, but he's really gone up in my estimation.