Uniquely different talent unlocked at Tannadice

Midfielder’s progress from United kid to star in EPL

Kieran Tierney has become Arsenal’s flavour of the month and player of the month by broadly doing the same job in a red and white strip as he was asked to do in a green and white one.

As proud as St Mirren and Hibs supporters will be of John McGinn’s exalted status in Birmingham, his allaction game at Aston Villa remains instantly recognisable.

Andy Robertson was an attacking leftback when he left Dundee United and he’s an attacking left-back now that he’s a Champions League and Premier League winner. There are more one-twos on the edge of the box at Anfield than there were at Tannadice but a spade is still a spade.

As a rule of thumb, the SPFL-raised Scots who cross the border and succeed do so because they find a manager who values their skillset, then extends the curve by refining and moulding it for the requirements of his team and a higher standard of opposition. The holes are square and so are the pegs.

Go through all of them playing in England’s top flight and it’s a similar story – Robert Snodgrass (drop the shoulder, exquisite crossing); James McArthur (disciplined, dirty work in midfield); James McCarthy (up and down, tackles flying); Ryan Fraser (raw pace and cutting in from the left); Kenny McLean (dictating tempo); John Fleck (vision and weight of pass as a No 10).

But Stuart Armstrong is different. Perhaps even uniquely different.

The challenge Ralph Hasenhuttl has set him at Southampton, or more accurately, Armstrong’s ability to rise to the challenge Hasenthuttl has set him at Southampton, sets him apart.

Saints fans poring over Armstrong’s highlights package from his seasons with Dundee United and Celtic hoped they had signed the next Steven Davis – an energetic, goal-scoring, midfielder who could marry running power with a bit of composure and creativity. And when he broke into a struggling Mark Hughes team the position in which he was deployed, and on occasion the performance he produced, supported the Davis analogy.

Now, ask Southampton legend Jason Dodd to compare him to a player he either played with or watched over the last three decades, it’s not athletic equivalence he’s attempting to recall, it’s craft and guile at the top end of the pitch.

“When Stuart first came down from Scotland I thought we were getting a box to box midfielder,” said Dodd, whose Southampton career lasted 16 years as a player and a few more as a coach.

“Steven Davis was magnificent for Southampton but if you were being critical, which is harsh, did we get the goals we thought we were expecting from him? Probably not.

“Adam Lallana was a very creative player but he would operate deeper on the pitch. It’s a while ago now (1996-97) but Eyal Berkovic had a brilliant season with us.

“He was smaller but he linked the play well, like Stuart, in the danger area. The lads weren’t too sure about him when he came in at the start but his performances changed that. It was in areas that mattered – the final third. That’s where you need players to make the difference and win you Premier League games. Stuart is definitely doing that.”

Before anybody rolls their eyes and thinks back to the Berkovic whose every touch of the ball was booed by Celtic fans in a pre-season friendly, by which time they wanted him out of Parkhead, Israel’s greatest footballer is revered for his season at The Dell.

Two goals and three assists in a 6-3 victory (no grey kit excuses from Sir Alex on this occasion) over Manchester United doesn’t get easily forgotten. Matt Le Tissier’s lob over a stranded Peter Schmeichel is the pick of the six that makes all the ‘best ever’ DVDs but a Berkovic 20-yard volley isn’t far behind. Dodd played that day.

Maybe it was the fact that Armstrong’s display against United was fresh in the memory that prompted the Berkovic comparison when he spoke about his development under Hasenhuttl. It was against the same club that the magnitude of the 28-year-old’s evolution was brought into sharp focus as he shone under the lights of Old Trafford.

Armstrong started out with the other United as a teenage substitute widemidfielder tasked by Peter Houston with making full use of his pace against tiring full-backs by either getting in behind where he could be picked out with a diagonal pass or cutting back in to burst through the space between the left-back and left-sided centre-half. Ten years later, here he was, effectively a support forward for Danny Ings, triggering a sophisticated and well-oiled Southampton press, giving a robotic Harry Maguire all the trouble he could wish for with movement and awareness any born and bred number nine would be proud of.

Before this game, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s men were rolling over the top of their opposition and rolling back the years, winning four league games in a row by a three-goal margin. But in the first 15 minutes against Southampton in particular, and other shorter spells later in the game, they were falling into the traps Armstrong and his team-mates were setting them.

The type of goal that pleases Jurgen Klopp the most is when the aggressive ambush high up the pitch produces a turnover and his players react dynamically off it. Hasenhuttl, the ‘Alpine Klopp’, is cut from the same gegenpressing cloth.

The real Klopp would undoubtedly have approved. For a combination of training ground practice meeting offthe-cuff expression in a counter-press, you’ll not find a better example than Southampton’s opening goal.

With Paul Pogba taking a fraction of a second too long on the ball while he was assessing his options, Ings springs into action and pick-pockets him on the D. At this stage you still wouldn’t put the chances of a goal any higher than 50-50, though. Maguire is several yards closer to David de Gea than the soon-to-be goal-scorer, which should make him the favourite to get to any cross that will come in from Nathan Redmond now that Ings has quickly moved the play into the box.

But it is the striker’s run by Armstrong

Stuart can adapt to any position. Football evolves and if you want to stay at the very top you have to evolve with it. STEVIE CAMPBELL

of inside and then – when Maguire momentarily and fatally turns his back on him to face Redmond – away from the centre-half and towards the back post that defines the attack and goal. The cushioned first touch and crisp finish wasn’t too bad either.

Houston to Hasenhuttl, with key interventions from Jackie McNamara and Brendan Rodgers in between, has been quite the progression for Armstrong. Even his mentor, Stevie Campbell, wouldn’t have predicted where the positional pendulum would settle at what can now be described as the peak of his career so far.

“When I had Stuart at United, I played a 4-2-3-1 in my team at that time,” said Campbell, who was the head of youth at Tannadice.

“Stuart was the No 10. Scotty Allan wanted to play it but I put Stuart there. Scotty was on the right of the three, with Ryan Dow on the left, with Dale Hilson up front. It was a really potent front four.

“I did see Stu becoming that advanced central midfielder he became at United and Celtic, bursting in to the box, but I must admit he’s changed his game recently. I didn’t see the most recent change coming.

“I’ve seen him wide before in a 4-3-3 and a 4-4-2. Ronny Deila regularly played him out wide at Celtic. But now, he’s just off the striker. It’s almost like they’re playing two 10s at Southampton and he’s the right-sided one.

“What I will say is, Stuart can adapt to any position. Football evolves and if you want to stay at the very top you have to evolve with it.”

Speak to any academy coach and he will be able to reel off the names of the ones who have made it in the game after the start he has helped give them. With Campbell it would take longer than most. To that “potent front four” mentioned above add the likes of Johnny Russell, the Souttar brothers and Ryan Gauld. But it is his bond with Armstrong that has probably been the strongest.

When the family relocated from Inverness to the outskirts of Dundee, Campbell seized an opportunity that had fallen into his lap.

“I was at Inverness before I came to United,” he said. “I spoke to Scott Kellacher (in charge of the Caley Thistle academy) about us having a look at Stuart and I took an instant like to him. Basically, I asked his dad straight away if he’d like to join us at United.

“I’m not going to lie, I was a bit surprised that Inverness said we could have him for nothing.”

Campbell couldn’t keep a lid on the expectations he had for Armstrong and those high hopes soon filtered up to Houston’s predecessor as first team manager at Tannadice, Craig Levein.

“I can remember early on we took the youth team up to Stornoway,” he said. “We’d played one game and Craig was on the phone. ‘How did your boy Armstrong do?’ I told him that we won the game and how Stuart had played. Then he said: ‘I’ll see you tonight’. I was like: ‘Gaffer, we’re in Stornoway!’

“The next game had just started and there he appeared. It probably says as much about the gaffer being obsessed with football as it does about wanting to see Stuart play!”

There is no such thing as inevitability when predicting youth talent to first team conversion, as Campbell knows better than anyone. But Armstrong was as near to it as you could hope to get.

Sure enough he got his chance off the bench under Houston in November, 2010 against Kilmarnock. Four more substitute appearances followed before he got a starting jersey in Paisley, not long after the turn of the year. It wasn’t until the following season, 2011-12, before you could describe Armstrong as a regular.

A man who faced him in that campaign, and would later go on to be his coach with Scotland, got a close-up appreciation of a talent-base that would expand with experience in later years.

Recently-appointed St Johnstone boss Callum Davidson said: “Stuart came on for Dundee United when I was still playing for Saints. That was my first glimpse of him. He was played out wide, on my side of the pitch.

“He was full of running and you could see that he had a lot of other good attributes even then.”

It is no slight on Houston that he chose to bed Armstrong in as a wide midfielder. It was the sensible choice, both in terms of the player’s own development and the quality of the senior central players who were ahead of him. But it was Jackie McNamara who moved him inside and unlocked the goal-scoring potential of a player who had only found the back of the net on three occasions up until that point.

In 2013/14 Armstrong was playing with a 10 on his back and he lived up to the shirt number, scoring on 11 occasions. There are plenty and varied examples to pick from but if there was such a thing as a signature Stuart Armstrong Dundee United goal it was seen at Celtic Park when he surged through the middle, took a chipped Nadir Ciftci pass over Virgil van Dijk on to his chest, went round Fraser Forster and finished from close range.

That United side was on the slide the following season but Armstrong certainly wasn’t. There were another six goals before he got his January transfer to Celtic. Being moved back out wide wouldn’t have been part of the plan, however. Certainly not in the way Deila was utilising him, with more emphasis on defensive duties than offensive ones.

Yes, he had better players to compete with for a starting place but any United supporter or former team-mate would tell you Armstrong’s wings were being clipped.

That Deila left before he did and that the Norwegian’s successor, Rodgers, was willing to give him his chance back in the middle was the key to the next phase in his career. The confidence to spell out where he wanted to play to a manager of the former Liverpool boss’s stature speaks to the character traits of Armstrong that Campbell believes get overlooked as a result of the polite manner, the extensive vocabulary, the university degree and the choir boy looks.

Too nice? Too deferential? Not a chance.

“There were people who were questioning his mentality in the early days at United,” said Campbell. “People who thought he was a bit soft. Maybe that was because of his personality.

“But I knew. He’s got a steeliness that folk won’t see because he’s such a nice lad off the pitch.

“He’s always been one to listen and learn but he’ll ask questions of a manager as well. There’s nothing wrong with being opinionated.

“His career hasn’t quite mirrored what Andy Robertson has done at Liverpool – winning the Champions League and the Premier League – but what they have in common is they both came to United after being rejected in the past. In Stuart’s case it was Aberdeen and Inverness. You need to be very strong mentally to go on to do what he’s done.

“Even at United there was a time when he wasn’t playing. There was a time at Celtic when he wasn’t playing and there was a time when he wasn’t playing at Southampton.

“Certainly, in the case of Southampton, there would have been plenty of people saying: ‘Is this jump too big for him?’ He’s shown great resolve.”

There is one particular bounce-back from Armstrong that Campbell looks back on as a sliding-doors moment.

“Stuart was gutted to be left out of the starting line-up by Jackie for the Scottish Cup semi-final against Celtic (which United lost 4-3 after extra-time),” he said.

“The plan was always to bring him on around the hour mark, which is what happened. We had a bit of a fall-out because I didn’t think he contributed to the game in the way he could.

“But he came back from that disappointment straight away and didn’t let it linger. We played Motherwell a few days later and Stuart McCall and Kenny Black were blown away by his performance. He was so good that night. He had a point to prove.

“He has shown that strong mentality time and time again. He’s come back from everything that has been thrown at him. If there were any doubters left I think he’s proved them all wrong.”

Davidson had an excellent career in England and he believes that having a split-personality when it comes to football and real life is no bad thing.

“Stuart’s a quiet lad but you can be nice and have another side to you on the pitch,” said the former Blackburn Rovers and Leicester City defender.

“I’ve come across plenty of players who are so nice off the pitch but totally different on it. The prime example for me is Paul Dickov. I used to travel with him every day at Leicester and he’s the nicest guy in the world. But not on the pitch he isn’t. Steven MacLean is the same.

“Being a nice person who conducts himself properly definitely isn’t a negative.”

Pictures: Shutterstock/ SNS Group. Above left: Stuart Armstrong turns away to celebrate after scoring Southampton’s opening goal in a Premier League victory over Manchester United at Old Trafford earlier this month; right: The young midfielder on his debut for Dundee United in an SPL game with Kilmarnock at Tannadice in November 2010.