It's Wednesday evening, Charlton have beaten Hull the night before and he's having a chuckle about newspaper descriptions of an apparent 33-man brawl ("Thirty-three men? Like, where'd they even get 33 people from?"). For a guy who was in danger of slipping off the radar this past couple of years, of becoming another whatever-happened-to-him story, these few months have been a welcome change. If playing games are a footballer's oxygen, then he was gasping for breath there for a time. That it's happening a little off-Broadway is just fine for now. There are enough reasons to be cheerful.

Reason to be happy number one: he's playing. If his year-and-a-half with Spurs was disjointed due to a combination of injury and just not getting his game when fit, then last season with Charlton was awfully bitty because of injury alone. He missed pre-season, played 12 games in a row and then had just come back from a month out with a hamstring injury last January when it went again against Middlesbrough; he wouldn't play again last season. To add insult to the, ahem, injury, nobody could quite put their finger on the exact cause. Doctors lined up to look at xrays and shook their collective heads until finally one specialist spotted the scar tissue that was the problem.

"I was lucky enough that this guy was an expert in the area, " Reid explains. "The professor said he wasn't surprised no-one else had noticed because it isn't a common problem with footballers, it's more a sprinter's injury apparently. And this guy was the only one around who does this type of operation. So I had to trust him, he removed the scar tissue and I've got a fairly big gash down my leg now. But it's been perfect since, it feels so much stronger now, so it was worth it."

That was late March, there was six weeks laid up resting and waiting and then while everyone else was off sunning themselves, Reid got stuck into some hard graft. Knuckled down to rehab and got back to some form of fitness all on his lonesome before pre-season. Five days a week for the summer. Physically demanding? You betcha. The mental side of things was tougher though. Up and into an empty training ground day after day can get wearing. His music helped. The guitar got a fair airing during those lonely weeks and he took up the banjo as well, just for something to keep him entertained.

"Definitely that was the difficult part. It was just myself, the fitness coach and the physio there most days, and in fairness, they were brilliant. Encouraging, keeping me going.

Kicking a ball around with me when I eventually could, 'cos they knew I was going mad on my own. It was important to build up that fitness though so I was ready for pre-season.

It was hard being there with none of the players around but there was no choice to be made, it's what I had to do. I got through it.

Now I'm back playing."

Reason to be happy number two: he's playing a more suitable role week in, week out.

Alan Pardew has given him the freedom to go where he needs to go to influence games, whether that be through the middle or drifting in from the left side of midfield. Playmaking. A central part of the team. Fact was, at Spurs, Martin Jol wanted a sideline-hugging, Damien Duff-style left-winger. Reid was nothing of the sort and wondered why he was bought at all when the manager knew the type of player he was (and wasn't). That it didn't work out was frustrating; just seven starts in his only full season (2005/06) at White Hart Lane led to a certain inevitability. When Ian Dowie came calling that summer, the offer was too good to resist.

"Mostly he just promised me games, " he says. "Ian Dowie said he wanted me to play football, wanted me to be an important part of the team, wanted me to be creative for him and get on the ball and make chances. That was all I wanted.

And to be honest, after a short time it almost felt like Spurs didn't happen, I feel like I've been at Charlton three or four years I'm so comfortable here. I wouldn't have doubted myself at Spurs really, I'd have confidence in my ability, but it's nice to be settled into a club. Alan Pardew's been great as well, really encouraging. We had a chat before the season about what we both wanted.

I want to be in the Premier League and so do the club so we're heading in the right direction."

Reid is captain of the club now, reckons he's learned more in these past few months, and is getting there. And he's still only barely turned 25, a year younger than Stephen Hunt, just a year older than Kevin Doyle, two of the bright new things of Irish football. Ask whether he sees himself as one of the young guns anymore though and he'll say the last few years have brought him down on the experienced side of the mid-20s.

It's surely a different Andy Reid than the one who broke onto the scene under Brian Kerr.

"The time at Spurs and the injuries and just the natural progression you make, I think I'd consider myself one of the more experienced guys now, even in the Irish set-up. I don't mind taking more responsibility, talking a bit more with the younger lads. I didn't make a conscious decision, I think there just comes a time when you step up to a different role. I'm more mature now than I was, more as a person than a player. I suppose the time out helps you appreciate the games as well. I've never considered myself hard done by, just incredibly lucky to be playing football."

Other reasons to be happy? He's playing damn well. He's back playing for Ireland, something he genuinely missed in the nine months or so he was out of action at international level. For Charlton, he's scored five goals already this campaign along with a few assists, been the standout class act in most every game with more than one suggestion he's performing a division below what he ought to be.

For Ireland, well, his range of passing in Denmark was enough to have the Giles/ Brady/Dunphy think-tank clammering for his inclusion for Slovakia and the Czech Republic. His assist for Robbie Keane's goal in Aarhus was actually notable as much for its precision as for the fact it was the first defence-splitting goal created by an Irish midfielder since Reid dinked a perfect pass onto the same striker's toe at home to Israel over two years before. A pattern that suggests that if Ireland are looking for someone to put their foot on the ball and open up a clogged defence, it's more likely to be Reid than anyone else. He was delighted with the run-out in Denmark, not so much to be left on the bench in Slovakia. Not that he paid much notice to the calling for his use back home.

"Honestly, I don't really need anybody telling me I should be in there or shouldn't.

It's the manager's choice anyway. I did what I could to start, made my case in training and obviously I wanted to play but I wasn't picked.

Then I got to play in the Czech Republic and the manager just told me to do what I always do, to pass the ball, to enjoy it. I felt we were unlucky not to take something from there, that we were gutsy and brave. I genuinely feel there's a good spell on the way for this team."

For now he'll take being part of it all again.

And then you feel there's more to come from Andy Reid.