SHRINK’S HELPING ME SHINE
Ryan sprinting towards Scotland debut ... but he’s still not as fast as his mum
From Back Page different player really. I was quite negative. I went to see a psychologist to try to help me stop being so negative and that has helped me out.
“If you are doing well you grow from it.
“Eddie Howe suggested it. He obviously saw I am quite negative so he got the team psychologist at Bournemouth to help me. It seems to be working.
“I was scared at first. They are judging your every moment, you start to get nervous.
“You start changing things, you start twitching. I stopped twitching just because he was looking at me twitching.
“I tried not to speak but he helped me out a lot.”
Fraser was picked up by Bournemouth boss Howe when he was a teenager at Pittodrie.
The Cherries gaffer spotted the huge potential in the 5ft 4in pocket rocket but the youngster needed a mental MOT to get up and running in the EPL.
Fraser said: “It has helped with small things. I did it after I came on against Spurs in the 85th minute earlier in the season and had a one on one with Danny Rose.
“It was 0-0, the lads had been working hard. I didn’t take him on. I passed the ball back.
“Eddie asked, ‘Why did you do that?’ I said I didn’t want to lose the ball, they could run in and score then that’s all the lads’ hard work gone. He said, ‘But what if you took him on, crossed the ball and we scored from it?’
“I hadn’t really thought of that. I had gone to the negative output, the safer output. That was the type of stuff holding me back.
“I was still positive in the way I played, it was just getting to the next level. That is what was stopping me.
“I might have done something good but there was no end product. Now there’s often end product and there’s an assist or a goal – something good happening.”
Scotland boss Gordon Strachan is hoping Fraser’s positivity will rub off on his squad.
Canada tonight will be used to blow off the rust for some of the less-active stars but the Slovenia clash is win or bust in the bid for Russia 2018.
Fraser has shrugged off his reputation of being a go-to guy from the bench and he’s determined to make an impact in Leith this evening.
He said: “I just try to play my football, do my best and if I get picked it’s a nice reward.
“I know some of the lads such as John McGinn from the Under-21s. It will be good to get to know the other ones.
“I just want to express myself. I have definitely stepped up from just being an impact player.
“I didn’t really want to be known as an impact player. Now I am starting games I feel like I am growing as a player.” RYAN FRASER doesn’t come from a football family but he knows the talents that have taken him to the top of the game come from the home.
The little Bournemouth winger’s career has been built on speed and sacrifice – and the 23-year-old revealed both attributes have come from his parents.
The blinding pace is thanks to his sprinter mum Debbie while the dedication was drilled in to him by dad Graeme who packed in a money-spinning job in the Middle East to give his boy a chance to cut it in the risky business of football.
Fraser will pick up his first Scotland cap against Canada tonight and if he produces the form shown for the Cherries in the Premier League of late he could be catapulted into the side for Sunday’s World Cup showdown with Slovenia.
The new boy is straining at the leash – and if Gordon Strachan is looking to bring a bit of balance to the team then he should be putting in a call to Mrs Fraser.
The ex-Aberdeen kid said: “My mum’s faster than me – a lot faster! She’s injured right now but we’d have a sprint down the street and she’d still nearly beat me. She’s smaller than me but rapid!
“She was going to run in the Olympics and then had a knee injury which needed an op and that screwed her over really.”
His mum may have given him the jet pack but it was his dad who put away the tools to help Ryan build a career.
The flying machine said: “My parents don’t like football to be honest. I don’t know how I got in to it, I honestly don’t.
“I used to live in Oman in the Middle East where my dad worked as an electrician offshore. I had a ball and I used to kick it about.
“My dad was never any good at sport but my mum was a 100metres sprinter for Scotland.
“That’s where I probably get my pace from. When he thought I was good at football at a young age, my dad actually quit his job and came back over to Aberdeen to get me in the team.
“If it weren’t for that then I might still be out somewhere in the Middle East.
“It was a huge sacrifice because my dad would have been on good
I’m trying to do well for myself in order to make my family proud RYAN FRASER
TONIGHT, EASTER ROAD, 7.45pm money working offshore. But he would never cast it up to me – he’s not that type of parent.
“He never made me pay dig money when we lived in Aberdeen. I was on low wages and he didn’t take any of it.
“He just wanted me to enjoy my football and concentrate on playing the game.
“There were no guarantees I’d make it as a player but he gave a lot up in order that I at least had a chance. My first cap would definitely be for him and my mum – they lost and then spent a lot of money on me to put me through teams and camps and courses when I was young.
“I want to repay them with a Scotland cap and in every game in the Premier League I’m trying to do well for myself in order to make my family proud.”
Fraser has done that so far but has been forced to make sacrifices of his own. The wide boy was slaughtered by some for deciding to leave Aberdeen at just 18 and head to Bournemouth.
Back then the Cherries were a League One outfit and Dons fans were furious at what they saw as a slight.
Plenty overstepped the mark and while Ryan was hundreds of miles away on the south coast it was the Fraser family left in the firing line.
He said: “I felt like I made the right choice two weeks into the move. I got hammered for it and my family got hammered for it.
“I got tweets and messages