PRICE IS NOT A PROBLEM
Fletcher: Burke okay with tag
PASSING on the tag of Scotland’s most expensive footballer was a pleasure for Steven Fletcher. The former £12million man swiftly realised Oliver Burke is showing no signs of being weighed down by his record fee. Fletcher spoke to the teenager on Scotland duty just days after Burke was paraded as a Red Bull Leipzig player on a deal from Nottingham Forest that could rise to £15m.
‘He seems a grounded lad, takes it all in his stride and is quite quiet,’ said Fletcher. ‘I think if you said to him that’s an awful lot of money you’ve gone for he’d be like: “Well, aye” and shrug like it doesn’t matter. That’s just him, a good character. I don’t see it being a burden on him.’
Burke impressed for 66 minutes on his competitive international debut last Sunday night in Malta as Scotland kicked off qualifying for the World Cup with a 5-1 victory over the Group F minnows. The 19-year-old operated in behind Chris Martin, then out wide.
Often, he was the most advanced Scottish player on the pitch as he hinted at the skills that could be the difference-maker for Gordon Strachan’s hopes of guiding the squad to Russia and for many years to come. The prospect of Burke making more rapid improvement, simply by virtue of his new environment, is something that excites Fletcher in advance of the October double-header at home to Lithuania and away to Slovakia.
‘Oli is young and we don’t want to put too much pressure on him, but he’s off to Germany now and that’s a good place to go and learn,’ he said. ‘His out- look will help him and the Germans will look after him. I lived over there as a kid and he’ll enjoy it.
‘He’s a great talent. The fans will be looking forward to seeing the best of him. We certainly enjoyed watching him in training every day. As has been said already, there’s a bit of Gareth Bale about him. They run the same and he can be a real danger to our opponents in this group.
‘The bigger I’m getting, the slower I get, but with his size Oli terrifies defenders. He goes past them then cuts across them and they don’t know what to do. He’s raw and that can be good for him. Because if he doesn’t always know what he’s going to do next, there’s no chance of defenders knowing. That’s not a bad thing.’
With power, presence and pace Burke is a promising package like no other young Scot to emerge in many a year. Fletcher, who netted his ninth Scotland goal in Malta and saw a shot off the crossbar tee up Robert Snodgrass for his hat-trick, believes Strachan boasts a variety of threats to throw at opponents in this campaign. Barrie McKay was an unused substitute and Leigh Griffiths, on top domestic form, was denied a start through injury.
‘We’ve got new boys coming in who are different to what we’ve always had and that’s exciting,’ noted Fletcher. ‘I used to be that boy, but sadly not anymore. It’s always nice having young talent to strengthen the squad and seeing the likes of Oli at training is terrific. It’s good for the future.
‘We’ve got a lot of pace and the gaffer has a fair amount of strikers to choose from. Griff wasn’t here and he’d have had a great chance of starting after his goals. So when he comes back in that’ll be great.
‘Getting a goal was great for my confidence and I was really happy for Snoddy. He’s been through so much and he deserved a night like that. All in all, it was nice to get a good start in the group.’