Stan Collymore is embarking on a three-week training regime in Tenerife as part of his grand plan to return to the Premiership - he might as well be pounding the pavements on Fantasy Island.

Collymore claims he has put his demons, and there are many, behind him and is on the comeback trail.

Sadly, rampant self-delusion is not cured quite so easily and Stanley Victor Collymore still suffers very publicly from this ailment.

Listen to this: "It might sound big-headed, but I still believe that I am the best."

No Stan. It doesn't sound big-headed, it sounds ridiculous. Farcical.

Even when the undoubtedly gifted Collymore was at his peak, he was never the best.

He was a man who had everything a top player needs, from the neck down.

It was what went on inside Collymore's head that presented the problems.

And it still does if he thinks three weeks of work in Tenerife will set him up for a return to the Premiership.

The Premiership is faster, fiercer and more cut-throat than when Collymore last played in it... and he couldn't hack it then.

This is not the place to discuss the personal issues that have plagued Collymore.

Let's deal with the facts of his playing career - facts that make a mockery of the suggestion that one of the game's great wasters can re-emerge at 35 and make the slightest impact at the sharp end of English football.

I interviewed Collymore many times when he was at Liverpool.

Intelligent, plausible, a man who could make you believe the whole world had got him badly wrong.

And then you heard the stories, realised the unrest he had caused, and you knew this was a talent that would never be fulfilled.

Collymore's big chance came at Liverpool after he hinted at his gifts at Nottingham Forest.

Great performances at Liverpool were mixed with some desperate displays, very public sulking and off-the-field troubles.

No-one could have offered Collymore more support than Liverpool manager Roy Evans.

A decent, dignified man, Evans once stood in the gym at Liverpool's training headquarters and read out an apology on behalf of Collymore for his latest misdemeanour.

Collymore himself was nowhere to be seen, but Evans was protective and thought he was helping his player.

Evans' reward was a lurid revelation about Collymore's relationship with his daughter in his book.

That was Collymore - only too happy to let other people down if it served his purpose.

At Liverpool, he refused to move from his Cannock base and often missed training.

And claims that members of the Anfield hierarchy knelt and offered prayers of thanks when Aston Villa offered £7m to take him off their hands may not actually have been in jest.

What is a joke is the idea that Collymore will actually play a meaningful role in the Premiership again.

It would take a truly desperate manager and desperate club to take Collymore on.

If Collymore has cured his problems and now wishes to lead a quieter, more settled life, then no-one should begrudge him that.

But he must think the general public are as much fools as he has been if he thinks they will be taken in by words we have all heard before.

Forget it Stan. Football life has passed you by.