The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Unlocked at Tannadice
“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.”