On Wednesday, Kevin Kilbane turns 40 and to mark the occasion, former Ireland and Everton team-mate Lee Carlsey joined him on Off The Ball and the two discussed their very close friendship, with Carsley describing it as "like brothers".
"We are like brothers. We've been through a lot both on and off the pitch and through some of the darkest times of my career. On and off the pitch, Kev's always been there," Carsley said, before he and Kevin shared memories of their time together on Ireland and Everton duty.
Carsley spoke about how supportive Pep Guardiola and Mike Arteta have been to the Manchester City youth setup this season.
Former Ireland manager Brian Kerr also dropped by to wish Kevin a "Happy birthday" and he shared the story of a conversation with ex-Everton manager David Moyes in the mid-2000s about something that would later come to pass.
"I went over one Saturday to see [Kevin] and Lee play. I got there quite early," he recalled.
Lee Carlsey
"When I got to reception, the girl at reception said 'You've got to go down and see the manager'. And I said 'Alright'. [Moyes] was down in the dressing room.
"So here I am, rambling into Goodison Park and walking down to the dressing room because the manager wants to see me.
"So David Moyes said, 'Come on, we'll walk out onto the pitch'. We're walking out onto the pitch and he was asking me how Kevin had done for me and so on. And then he threw one in.
"He said, 'How do you think he'd do at left back?' And I said 'I think he'd do very well at left back but he doesn't need to play there yet. But there's no reason why he can't play well at left back because he has all the basic skills. He can run, he can tackle, he can kick it, he can head it. He just needs to get that little bit of judgement of when to come around and cover and half the instinct of a defender'. It was probably a couple of years later before that actually happened that he actually started to play left back."
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