Scots need a wee hard guy in our corner
Nice guys don’t end up with medals .. there’s a hard side to Ryan that will serve him well ..
It’s always wise to keep your eye out for the wee guy in a pub brawl.
The big fella you can see coming. But a little ‘un can leave you with a shiner before you even know what’s hit you.
There’s plenty of paper mache hard men who’ve come a cropper to a tasty small fry armed with a dose of Weemanitis.
Yet they still get underestimated.
Perhaps that’s what catches some people off guard when it comes to Ryan Fraser.
He might be 5ft 5ins with his boots on and speak with a soft Doric lift but English football’s most hated man right now has a granite running through him. It’s tremendous. You know he’s doing it right when mobile-phone salesman turned radio pundit Simon Jordan brands him “a wretched individual” and “a turd”.
This is a guy who chewed through five managers in three years when he was running Crystal Palace towards administration talking about showing loyalty.
Blowtorches and necks come to mind.
Jordan and others have their knick-knacks in a twist over Fraser’s decision to sit out the remainder of the EPL season and see out his contract at Bournemouth.
The Cherries went down of course before he pitched up at Newcastle United and admitted about his old club: “Without being bigheaded, with me playing, I think I would have helped massively.”
He was right. It might be pretty blunt but it wasn’t off the mark.
Spare us this nonsense about Fraser being selfish or out of order.
The wee winger was being single-minded about his career and shouldn’t be hammered for it. Clubs harp on about loyalty when it suits them. They treat players and managers like slabs of meat and bin them when it suits.
But when the shoe is on the other foot they howl indignation. Gie’s peace. Right from the start Fraser saw through the hypocrisy. He was quick to jump from Aberdeen where he was painted the bad guy for going so soon.
The Dons didn’t mention the new deal they offered him was a fraction of the amount less-talented teammates were pocketing.
Aberdeen didn’t want to gamble on paying top dosh on a teenager. So they can’t bleat when he goes elsewhere.
Bournemouth were in the third tier of England when he moved, remember, but he saw a path. Now it has taken him to Newcastle, where he’ll be on a hefty wedge and playing in the EPL each week.
Nice guys struggle to get a winch at the school disco and don’t end up with drawers full of medals.
He’s actually a lovely lad but there’s a hardnosed side as well that will serve him well in his career.
We can only hope Scotland boss Steve Clarke can harness it as well. Fraser has been mucked around too often by various Scotland gaffers.
He’s been shunted and shifted out of position, hailed one minute and dropped the next.
Clarke could do with cajoling this guy into becoming one of our main men. We’re crying out for pace and cutting edge. We’ve a ton of lovely ball players but there needs an explosion in the final third.
Fraser should be that man. There’s a big brawl to get to the Euros and we could do with a wee tough guy in our corner.