BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS
Celtic’s classy French star sets the standard for season blighted by crisis, but Miller is still mightily encouraged by clutch of Scots proving they can be...
MAY. Traditionally the month of medals and awards ceremonies, now just another blank expanse on the Scottish football calendar. Dundee United, Raith Rovers and Cove Rangers have all been crowned champions without ceremony. Celtic could follow.
Players’ union PFA Scotland has quietly decided to call off its annual awards ballot. At a time of universal uncertainty and impending hardship for its membership, their reasons are not hard to comprehend.
Yet, while neither they nor the Scottish Football Writers’ Association will host their annual dinner events this month, it would be unfair to ignore those who excelled over the course of a campaign that was entering its closing phase when the coronavirus pandemic struck.
Although a domestic ball has not been kicked since Hearts lost at St Mirren to go bottom of the Premiership table on March 11, the players’ union were already preparing to canvas their members on their votes for the Player and Young Player of the Year awards.
Around now, they would have been publishing their four-man divisional shortlists and Premiership leaders Celtic would doubtless have hogged the places in contention for the main award.
If not a shoe-in for the top prize, Odsonne Edouard would have been comfortable favourite.
Aged 21 at the start of the campaign, Edouard would also have been a hot favourite for Young Player and Kenny Miller, who faced up to the striker during his last professional appearance before retiring in February, would have struggled to see beyond the classy Frenchman for either award.
‘Edouard had to be the winner and the fact he would win the top award shouldn’t take away from the fact he has been the best young player too,’ says Miller. ‘He is performing at the highest level, he is just an outstanding footballer. And he is getting better and better.’
One of the many side-effects of lockdown has been to warp our collective sense of time but football has been doing just that for decades.
Miller sighs when told it’s 20 years since his fresh-faced self stepped onstage to collect his Young Player of the Year award for his scoring exploits at Hibs (right).
Yet there is no regret in his voice. Too many talented young Scots burst onto the scene and never quite manage to maximise their potential.
The scorer of more than 300 career goals, Miller was not one of them.
He hung up his boots after leading the line for Partick Thistle in a Scottish Cup tie against Celtic at Firhill in January.
Although he would play with distinction for Scotland, Wolves, Cardiff City, Derby, Bursaspor, Vancouver Whitecaps and even Celtic, Miller will probably be best remembered for his three stints at Rangers.
During his last, he served as something of a mentor to the club’s Colombian striker Alfredo Morelos. The Ibrox favouri t e started the current season like a train and, heading to the winter break would have been a close rival to Edouard.
The striker’s disciplinary issues resurfaced to not only derail that individual quest but the larger efforts of Rangers’ title challenge.
‘You have the two strikers at the Old Firm who are at opposite ends of the scale in terms of their temperament,’ says Miller. ‘Ever since Alfredo set foot in the country he has been the focus of referees’ attentions because of his antics on the field. ‘Nothing seems to faze Edouard, he doesn’t get wound up about anything.
‘As a finisher, Alfredo is equally talented and could outscore Edouard in any given season, but there is no doubt Edouard is a better all-round footballer.
‘Some people would maybe like to see Edouard show a little bit more emotion but when he is going through on goal, and moving so quickly, that temperament is a strength.
‘No matter what is going through his head he can pick the spot. That’s the difference between a good player and a great player. To have that at such a young age? For me that makes him the winner.’
While Edouard would likely have been celebrating a players’ double, he is not eligible for the SFWA equivalent of the Young Player award.
Voting for the writers’ award has also been suspended but Miller is intrigued by the local dimension to the voting process, which requires candidates to be eligible for the Scottish national team.
Only introduced in 2002, Miller missed out on that particular honour but is happy to consider this year’s contenders, and imagines a four-man Scots shortlist headed by Hearts teenager Aaron Hickey.
A 16-year-old debutant this time last year, Hickey has kept his head high and above the waterline while his team-mates have struggled for air.
Miller receives occasional bulletins on the young defender from his old Ibrox colleague Steven Naismith and believes he can go far.
‘Hickey has a lot of scope for improvement but he has had a great year in a struggling team,’ he says.
‘Naisy speaks really highly of him. He came in and started the Scottish Cup Final last year and hasn’t looked back.
‘He is playing in a team that is at the bottom of the league. That’s tough but it’s no slight on him.
‘He will have a big future in the game. I like him. We seem to keep churning out these great left-backs but he has also played right-back and even in the middle.
‘He has two decent feet, which is unique for player in that position and I’m told he listens to the good people around him.
‘He had a real solid start to the season, got his goal in the Edinburgh derby. He has been linked with a lot of big clubs and will go far as long as he keeps learning and developing.
‘He needs to be a sponge around the likes of Naisy. That will help him through.’
Next on Miller’s radar is Motherwell’s Allan Campbell, the beating heart of a team that sits third in the Premiership standings.
This has been the midfielder’s third campaign as a mainstay and he has underscored his importance with a contribution of six goals.
‘Campbell is really reliable,’ says Miller. ‘You can guarantee that on his worst day he is a 6.5 out of 10. On a good day he can be a nine.
‘The energy that he brings, his work ethic. Everybody I speak to says great things about him.
‘Managers, coaches and teammates want those reliable figures who, even on that bad day, still bring something to the table.’
Miller remains close to Maurice Ross, another former team-mate and now a member of Stephen Robinson’s coaching team at Fir Park.
Everything he hears about Campbell is encouraging and what he’s seen with his own eye backs it all up.
‘Motherwell are third in the league and that’s no surprise to me having watched them in the second half of last season,’ continued Miller. ‘I’ve said that to Mo and he agrees that
Managers want those reliable figures who, even on a bad day, bring something to the table
the energy Campbell brings to the team is so important.
‘Fans maybe won’t see the wee, subtle positional things he will do in a game to make other people round him better so he is probably a bit of an unsung hero.
‘But he has 20 caps for the Scotland Under-21s team and has also been captain.
‘You don’t give out the armband, even at that level, to somebody who is not well respected and reliable.
‘The other thing is that he plays all the time.’
That same consistency of selection is one of the main attractions of nominating Aberdeen’s Lewis Ferguson.
Only 18 when he moved to Pittodrie from Hamilton, Ferguson wasted no time in making it impossible for Derek McInnes to leave him out of his team.
After impressing in a Europa League qualifying tie against Burnley, overhead kick goal and all, he has been immovable.
If his second full year with the Dons has lacked the novelty factor of his first, he has arguably carried more responsibility, continuously turning out as McInnes’ three big midfield signings of last summer — Craig Bryson, Dylan McGeouch and Funso Ojo — have rotated round the treatment table.
‘Aberdeen have had a few injuries but Ferguson plays just about every week,’ adds Miller. ‘He came in as a very young man but has been in the team from the start.
‘The problem he might have is that he is not at the Old Firm, gaining those headlines week in, week out. Ryan Kent got it last year because from October through to voting time he was in the spotlight and Rangers’ best player in that spell. That was enough.
‘Lewis is steady. He will start 90 per cent of games, he is there all the time doing the ugly side of the game.
‘I’m not quite sure where he could end up but he has done a brilliant job for Aberdeen. He is only 20 and in the big games, the benchmark for these young players, he is always there and never hides.
‘If he could add more goals — a bit like his uncle Barry did — then that could propel him to the next level.’
Miller would also mention St Johnstone’s Ali McCann who, although capped by Northern Ireland at Under-21s level, was born in Edinburgh and graduated from Miller’s own finishing school, Hutcheson Vale.
Again, Miller has a man in the McDiarmid Park dressing-room in the shape of his former Cardiff and Dundee team-mate Elliot Parish.
‘I speak with Elliot who is the No2 goalkeeper there and he speaks highly of McCann,’ says Miller.
‘St Johnstone have been strong over the years in central midfield with guys like Murray Davidson and Liam Craig, so he must be doing something right.’
On Thursday, Hibs trailed a nostalgic online feature commemorating the 1999-00 season. The clip starts with footage of a local sports reporter dictating his account of Miller scoring a goal past Aberdeen goalkeeper Jim Leighton by landline telephone.
There’s no sign of Miller’s subsequent appearance in a dinner suit as he took the acclaim of a Glasgow ballroom but his profile would only grow that summer as he made a £2million transfer to Ibrox.
He may have enjoyed the acclaim but it never detracted from the graft he applied to his trade.
‘I was always pretty quick and I chipped in with a few goals but I was clever too,’ he reflects. ‘When I first started, I maybe didn’t get the credit for that.
‘I always wanted to improve. Going to Rangers was a huge education because of the level of player I was suddenly training with.
‘I was again forced to raise my standards at Wolves, going to play alongside Paul Ince and Denis Irwin.
‘You need to master your own role but, even at 40, I was still learning.’