‘One of them has to learn to kick with his right foot’
McGrain has answer to the Robertson/Tierney puzzle...
IT is a debate that has vexed the Tartan Army for long enough. Not to mention Alex McLeish. How best to fit Andy Robertson and Kieran Tierney into the same Scotland team feels like one of the footballing questions of the age. For all the theories out there, the dilemma has yet to be properly solved.
McLeish has previously deployed Robertson at left wing-back and his Celtic counterpart on the left side of a three-man central defence. But then came last month’s grim 2-1 defeat to Israel in Haifa. And fresh questions about whether that formation really suited the personnel.
The national manager has doubtless expended no little thinking time on a tactical solution during the intervening period. To Danny McGrain, however, the answer is pretty straightforward.
Just as he did when shifting from right-back to left-back to accommodate the late, great Sandy Jardine, Celtic legend McGrain insists that either Robertson or Tierney has to make the opposite switch when Scotland line up in Albania tomorrow.
That was an option Gordon Strachan used during his time in charge, when Tierney was asked to operate on his less-preferred flank. And McGrain argues that practice can edge the solution closer to perfection.
‘One of them is going to have to learn to kick with their right foot,’ he argued. ‘It’s as simple as that. Kieran and Andy have been used to playing at left back their whole life. In that role, the most important thing is getting the ball into the box.
‘When I played left-back my biggest fear was getting up the park — six times out of ten I would slam the ball out the field. My left foot was c**p.
‘I worked really hard for two or three days a week on my left foot. ‘My happiest time is when I went up the park and kept the ball in when I crossed it. I didn’t care who was on the end of it. I was just delighted to keep it in.
‘The Scotland manager has to make the call about who he plays where. But one of those players just has to make their weaker foot stronger.
‘I was surprised that I had got to that stage in my life and could not kick better with my left foot.
‘It is a terrible indictment on Scottish football and the coaching back then, which was not the best and is not as good as it is today.
‘People say that Robertson or Tierney should be able to comfortably kick with both feet but that is not always the case.’
Repetition was the answer for McGrain. Training himself to use his left foot effectively was a case of going back to basics.
‘When I kicked the ball with my right foot, my left hand always went up,’ he recalled. ‘When I kicked the ball with my left foot, my right hand didn’t move.
‘I’d been kicking with my right foot since I was born. So I started kicking the ball with my left foot and raising my right hand so as to keep my natural balance.
‘I had to tell myself to get the right arm up. I had to teach my brain to do that. It sounds daft but that is what happened.
‘I would train on my own after training sessions. It took me about three solid weeks of hitting a ball against the wall at Barrowfield with my left foot — and telling my right hand to get up there.
‘Willie Ormond played me at left back for Scotland. Nobody said anything to me beforehand. I wasn’t too concerned about playing left or right back. I was playing for Scotland.
‘When somebody says: “You’re playing left-back for Scotland,” you don’t say: “Wait a minute, my left foot is c**p.”
‘You just have to grab the bull by the horns and do it.’
Talk of Albania amusingly brings McGrain around to a different subject. That of his trademark beard. A proud sporter of full facial hair decades before the recent fashion, he feared it would have to be shaved off when Celtic played against Partizani Tirana in the first round of the European Cup in 1979.
Communist dictator Enver Hoxha apparently viewed beards as a symbol of Western excess and had effectively outlawed them.
‘The guy running the country had banned Albanians from having beards and listening to rock music — they thought I was coming into the country to corrupt their youth,’ laughed McGrain. ‘I was a visitor going into the country and the talk was that I was going to have to shave it.
‘I genuinely thought it was going to have to come off. It took me two years to get a decent growth on that beard!
‘We lost 1-0 but beat them 4-1 at Celtic Park. But nobody said anything about my beard when I went to Albania. Nothing ever transpired.’
Some 40 years on from that hairraising excursion, McGrain expects Scotland to emerge with a victory from their own trip to the Balkan nation, before taking another three points from next Tuesday’s clash with Israel at Hampden.
‘I think we should be beating teams like Albania,’ he insisted. ‘Losing is not a question worth thinking about. We need to beat both Albania and Israel. We just have to.’
An Evening with Danny McGrain and Davie Hay is at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on Monday, January 7, 2019. Tickets from £20. 0141 353 8000 or www.ticketsglasgow.com