David McGoldrick is the best striker in League One right now.
His form for Barnsley since the start of 20026 has been nothing short of astonishing. 12 goals and three assists in 14 games.
What he is doing at 38 is remarkable. It feels almost callous to keep referring to things in terms of his age, but the context is crucial.
Dominic Ballard currently leads the way in the scoring charts in League One. He was born more than a year after McGoldrick made his Football League debut.
"Age is just a number, I tell people," McGoldrick tells Your Site. "The body's fine, the mind's fine.
"When people caption things and start with '38-year-old', you know they're going straight for the age. But it's a reflection that not many players are doing it at this age and still scoring goals. I take it as a privilege.
"A lot of players say things like, 'wow you still run around like a young boy for the age that you are'. Those are the better compliments. Not the ones with the headlines that say my age straight away. There are positives and negatives to it."
McGoldrick sees his current form, which helped earn him the Sky Bet League One Player of the Month award for February, as merely another career purple patch. No other citations needed.
"Stats-wise it's right up there for me," McGoldrick says. "I've never really been one for scoring over 20 goals in a season, I think only once in my time at Derby. But I've always scored goals.
"In terms of form I'm not sure what the numbers are, but it's a hot patch for me in my career and it's weird that it's come right at the back end.
"There's no real secret. I think you'll see in any striker's career they go through patches when they're not scoring and when they are scoring. Unless you're the top, top level, it just happens.
"When you're in a good vein of form you don't really think about chances too much. It comes down to instinct and they go in.
"When you're not in form you tend to take an extra touch and you're thinking about how you're going to score before you actually score it.
"When you're in good form you shoot from all angles and at all costs because you believe you're going to score."
Another of the keys to McGoldrick's longevity is his approach to fitness. While some players will try and take more time to rest and relax in the latter stages of their career, he has gone the opposite way.
"People ask me all the time if I get looked after in terms of days off and not training," he says. "I actually feel that the more days off I have the worse I feel.
"There are some days before games when we've had loads of matches where I might not train, but sometimes having two or three days off makes me feel worse than training normally.
"I like to keep the body going and keep it moving. That's what I've always done. Even if I'm not doing that at the club I'm doing it outside football in the gym or some sort of activity to keep my body moving. That's my main success."
Another part of his success comes from his personality and popularity. You would be hard pressed to find anyone who has a bad word to say about him, which isn't bad when you consider Barnsley is the 11th club of his career.
He uses his own style to motivate and lead the dressing room.
"There are certain players who love to shout and show that they're the bigger person or the older person to intimidate youngsters," he says. "That's completely not what I'm about.
"I prefer to show it through actions day to day. Looking after yourself, dietary stuff, recovery, gym. I love the gym and that spreads into some of the boys and you can see they notice that.
"Just giving advice as well, life advice and football advice. It's nice because the boys who want to listen, when you speak to them you can tell they're taking it in and they respect what you say. That's a good trait to have."
It is those attributes that make him the perfect character for manager Conor Hourihane to rely on. He is three years younger than McGoldrick and a former team-mate at club and international level.
"At the start it was a bit weird having your mate become the manager!" McGoldrick says with a smile. "But after a few weeks in pre-season I got used to it.
"I saw it when I was at Derby with him. He was always passionate to coach and to manage. He really puts a lot of sweat and tears into the job.
"He knows what he's doing. He's very tactical and clear about how he wants to play the game. I'm learning off him. Even though he's a bit younger than me he's got a great football brain.
"He also leans on me to help control the dressing room and with the staff around him there's a really good team there. It works well."
And it says a lot about McGoldrick's current form that talk has resurfaced of a possible Republic of Ireland recall - six years after he retired from international duty.
"I've heard a lot about it and had a lot of messages," he admits. "I looked on my Instagram the other day and there were Irish flags everywhere saying come home.
"Just being brought up in those conversations again at my age means I'm doing something right.
"I would reconsider it, but I haven't heard anything officially. I know there have been a lot of injuries and I haven't heard anything officially.
"I've been watching as a fan since I retired in 2020. Right now I'm just concentrating on scoring goals for my club and what will be, will be."
Whether he is in the squad later this month for the World Cup play-offs, or even in the summer should they make it, remains to be seen.
But does he have any breaks planned for the next international break or the summer yet?
McGoldrick laughs and says: "My schedule is free."
