TALKING CELTIC McGrain saysKT’s so good he doesn’t need his advice
DANNY McGRAIN offered advice to Kieran Tierney last night about how to swap sides and still outflank England at Hampden on Saturday – but said his 20-year-old protege is so good he doesn’t need any.
McGrain, who regularly swapped right for left-back to accommodate the likes of Sandy Jardine during the late 1970s and early 1980s, has watched Tierney’s development closely in the youth ranks at Celtic.
Having gone up against Raheem Sterling on Champions League duty in the 3-3 draw against Manchester City in September and lived to tell the tale, McGrain reckons the youngster – who is likely to play on the right to accommodate Andy Robertson on the left – can hold his own against whoever England has to throw at him.
“Kieran is a throwback,” said McGrain. “He is only 20 and is such a good player and such a nice guy. He’s one for now and for the future.
“He really is a tremendous player. Consistency is the stamp of a good player and that’s exactly what he produces for Celtic. He is just getting better and better and I can’t wait to see him in a couple of years.
“I think he will be asked questions on Saturday. I think every player in the Scotland team will have questions asked of them,” added the 63-year-old. “But hopefully we are good enough to ask them questions too. I don’t know if they feel they are superior.
“They are always over-hyped, but sometimes we are too. They are a good team but are they one of the best teams in the world? I don’t think so.
“But I would take a good draw now. He [Kieran] has played against Sterling already and at times he was brilliant, sometimes you get that. Just as long as he doesn’t score. I remember I played against Jesper Olsen [for Celtic against Ajax] in 1982, when big Billy [McNeill] was the manager.
“You would have thought big Billy would have told me about him but I just went on the park and this wee guy flew by me.
“He scores a goal within three minutes and I am thinking, ‘Oh f***, cheers Billy’.
“Jan Molby was hitting the ball inside me, over me. But it was 2-2 at Parkhead and we beat them over at Ajax 2-1. I either kicked him early or threatened him but I must have knocked the stuffing out of him because he never went by me like that again.”
LIKE McGrain before him, Tierney has had to methodically work on his shortcomings. “I could say it was p*** easy but it wasn’t because I had no left foot,” said McGrain. “I had to work hard on it.
“It could have taken two weeks or six months until I wasn’t even thinking about it.
“Of course it made me a better player. A two-footed fullback? There wasn’t many of us, maybe only Tommy Gemmell! Did I explain this to Kieran? No. It isn’t that Kieran doesn’t talk to me, it is just that he has enough people telling him what to do. If they want any help they know I am there.”
McGrain played eight times against the Auld Enemy, winning half of them.
“None of us were worried about England, I’d say it was more wary,” he recalled. “You’re talking about a big name England team that was always on TV. I haven’t got the intelligence to properly describe the feeling of beating England.
“You’d look across at the England players and think, ‘I’m going to f****** sort you out’.
“You’d try and signal it to them, but they probably wouldn’t have understood me if I’d talked to them.” close to signing a five-year contract with Celtic in 1998.
“I had representatives from the club sitting on my patio at home.
“But it was not possible to have my dog with me in Scotland without it being quarantined, so my wife said no and that was it.”
Celtic went for Dr Jo Venglos and Olsen went on to manage teams in Norway as well as the Iraq national team and Norway once more.