Gauld steadily building push for place in Clarke’s finals squad

IT has taken longer than he would have hoped but former Dundee United teenage sensation Ryan Gauld is at last establishing himself as an elite performer in Portugal.

The man nicknamed ‘Mini Messi’, who was scouted by all the big clubs in Europe after breaking through at Tannadice as a 16-year-old, is starring in a recently-promoted Farense side.

With thoughts in Scotland already turning to which players can fight their way into next summer’s European Championships squad, Eric Nicolson charts the fall and rise of Gauld’s career and assesses his chances of catching Steve Clarke’s eye.

Over six years have passed since Gauld left Tayside for sunny Portugal. He’s back in the same division as he started, the Primeira Liga, but not with the same club.

When Sporting Lisbon paid over £3 million to sign arguably Scotland’s most talented and talked about young footballer back in the summer of 2014, they didn’t spend that money with the expectation of Gauld becoming a top team regular in the first season.

But both player and club would have been frustrated that it didn’t happen in the second one – or at all, for that matter.

The statistic which best sums up a career that stagnated in Lisbon is that despite four loans spells – at Vitoria de Setubal, Aves, Farense and Hibs and more recently around 30 games after signing permanently for Farense, his appearances for the Sporting B side still outnumber the accumulated total of the rest.

The reasons he barely featured for the Sporting first team?

The usual ones really – change of manager, injury, competition for places (at one point he had three midfielders who won Euro 2016 with Portugal in front of him) and no discernible strategy regarding where to and when he was being loaned out.

It was only when Gauld reluctantly accepted the Sporting dream was over, and dropped down to Portuguese second tier LigaPro with Farense, that it became clear those years hadn’t been wasted.

The trademark skill and touch were still there and, with an injury-free run in a team that used him as focal point whether that was from the left or in the middle, he blossomed.

Promotion, confirmed by the Portuguese football authorities during the coronavirus hiatus, was secured.

You would anticipate Gauld shining in the second division (he was club top scorer) but making a name for himself in the sixth best league in the world would truly define whether he was at last truly realising his potential.

He is doing just that. Farense have played seven games and been competitive in all of them.

Gauld, deployed as a number 10, has been their main man again. He has also been a points earner.

In their last game before the international break, Farense secured the first victory, a 3-1 defeat of Boavista.

Captain Gauld scored one and assisted another (he’s had three of the latter in total this season).

That sustained impact is now reflected in Wyscout’s expected goals (xG) and assists table, with Gauld in second place behind Benfica’s Uruguayan international, Darwin Nunez.

He has the joint thirdhighest total of assists (three), with Boavista’s Angel Gomes and Nunez the only players who have provided more.

There is no doubt that he deserves to be namechecked when people are talking about Clarke’s 23-man squad for the Euro finals Scotland have just qualified for.

Gauld still has ground to make up but if he can put in a man of the match performance against one of Portugal’s giants, like his old club Sporting, he’ll eat that up in one go.

The fact that the preEuro internationals are World Cup qualifiers doesn’t work in favour of Gauld but a combination of his own irresistible form and injuries to others could open the door.

Ryan Gauld.