WANTAWAY MIDFIELDER McLEAN ENDURES ANOTHER NIGHT OF MISERY
Wantaway midfielder suffers with rest of Dons as they end up a distant second best
THERE would be no fanfare to mark the start of the long goodbye. For Kenny McLean, this was a night to suffer alongside the colleagues from whom he will part. Confirmation that McLean intended to exit Aberdeen when his contract expires next summer arrived on Tuesday afternoon. How a sold-out Pittodrie reacted to the news offered its own fascination.
There had been some prior unpleasantness. One numbskull apparently posted details of McLean’s address and car on social media in the hours after the news entered the public domain.
In the ground, however, there was no such animosity. Only the intense frustration that McLean — like every other Aberdeen player — was unable to pop a pin in the tyre of Celtic’s juggernaut.
This was a night when Scotland’s champions proved precisely why they are now 61 domestic games unbeaten under Brendan Rodgers.
Bluntly, there was precious little McLean could do to alter the course of events. When the Parkhead side click, as they did during a masterful opening period, they operate on a plane above even their closest Premiership rivals.
The reading of the pre-match team lines did actually provoke some half-hearted booing. But that noise was reserved for Jonny Hayes.
Once the premier player in this parish, Hayes occupied a spot on the Celtic bench. The £1.3million Irish winger would later be introduced for a first outing since the 2-2 draw with Hibernian a month ago.
Such is the gulf in the respective resources at Parkhead and Pittodrie.
The cheers that greeted McLean’s name may have been a little more muted than some of his colleagues, but there was no obvious sign of dissent. After Ryan Jack and Niall McGinn last season, Aberdeen fans are becoming used to key talents declining to extend their contracts.
In truth, that should not be construed as any kind of insult to the club. Anyone with even a vague grasp of modern football’s financial realities will know that richer opportunities lie outside the north-east of Scotland. It would be a rare type of professional who didn’t want to explore them.
Certainly, there was no questioning McLean’s application last night. He ran as hard as ever, scrapped as much as he could. Making a telling impact proved beyond him but then the same could be said for everyone in red. The variation in Celtic’s play — its power and precision — was too much to handle.
McLean outlined the reasons behind his decision not to sign again in an interview with the Aberdeen website. Whether he is here until January or next May, he made clear his wish to leave on a positive note.
‘My time here has been excellent and I am sure it will continue to be so,’ he said. ‘That is all I am focusing on. I am not focusing on my future.
‘I am pretty ambitious and I would like to try other things. Plenty of players want to do the same. I read last week that there were 130 players out of contract in Scotland. So there are plenty of players in my boat.
‘Sometimes you need to freshen things up and I think that is maybe my way forward. But right now it is at the back of my mind. I have a massive season ahead.
‘If this is to be my last season, I want to finish on a high. I want to finish with some silverware.’
McLean tangled with Stuart Armstrong in a couple of early duels, losing the first and winning the second. That challenge would be the briefest of victories before Celtic shifted smoothly through the gears.
If anything, though, Armstrong represents an aspirational figure for McLean. It took time for the former to create the future he wanted after departing Dundee United. But that vision has been lived to the full over the past 12 months. Here, Armstrong was persistently excellent, the perfect foil to Scott Brown’s dominance of the central area.
McLean offered some flickers of resistance. One fine tackle halted Tom Rogic on the fringe of the area.
McLean was unable to pop a pin in the tyre of Celtic’s juggernaut