Cool finish came as a shock... but McDonald didn’t doubt Anguissa
AFTER watching Ajax wipe the floor with their favourites, the Wednesday night viewing only got worse for those Rangers fans brave enough to continue watching the Champions League action unfold. While Giovanni van Bronckhorst offered the TV cameras a worryingly pessimistic post-match summary of his team’s ability to compete at the top level, over on the other channel Napoli were already offering a demonstration of just how much tougher things might be about to get for the Ibrox side.
Assuming Police Scotland give the green light for the game to go ahead on Tuesday in the wake of The Queen’s passing, the Italians will stride into Glasgow with their confidence surging after dismantling last season’s finalists and Group A top seeds Liverpool.
Central to the 4-1 victory was the dominant midfield performance of Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa.
With a mixture of quick feet, muscle and composure, the Cameroonian ran the show at the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium and will be central to the Neapolitans’ gameplan on match-night two this week.
Only in one respect did Anguissa’s performances come as a surprise to his former Fulham team-mate Kevin McDonald. The former Scotland midfielder says: ‘I was taken aback by his goal. He’s one of the worst finishers I’ve ever seen! I’m jesting, of course, but, if you were to pick out the weakest part of his game, it would be his finishing.’
Anguissa’s path to goal may have been smoothed by an alarmingly abject piece of defending from Trent Alexander-Arnold, but the rolled finish past Alisson Becker was cool and calm on a night of complete dominance by Napoli.
McDonald was introduced to Anguissa in the summer of 2018 when the newly-promoted West London side decided to spend big in the hope of securing an extended Premier League stay under coach Slavisa Jokanovic.
Anguissa was the marquee signing, secured for a huge fee from Marseille and billed as the man to run the club’s midfield.
In effect, he was signed to supplant McDonald, who had anchored a three-man midfield featuring ex-Celt Stefan Johansen and Tom Cairney in the club’s promotion-winning season.
Instantly, the Scot was impressed by the talent of the new arrival. Yet it quickly became apparent that he was at the wrong club.
‘To be fair, Frank has always been the player you saw the other night against Liverpool,’ says McDonald.
‘He had real drive, energy and athleticism about him but he came to a Fulham team that had got itself promoted by playing good football and needed to change for the Premier League. We were not likely to dominate games at that level and so it proved.
‘After promotion we spent a bit of money. I think Frank came in for about £28m from Marseille, which shows how highly he was rated.
‘But playing in a team that was struggling I think dented his
confidence. Because of the way he was built and carried himself, you forgot how young he was, at 22. And one of the hardest things for him was the language barrier. He didn’t speak English and that made it harder to settle.’
Rangers will hope that home advantage and the backing of a partisan crowd can help them bounce back from that 4-0 opening night lesson in the Netherlands.
The Ibrox atmosphere was a huge factor in the club’s run to last season’s Europa League final but McDonald does not expect Anguissa or the rest of the Napoli team to be intimidated — not when they routinely play in front of one of Europe’s rowdiest audiences.
‘Going to Ibrox won’t bother Frank at all,’ he continues. ‘He’ll handle the big atmospheres no problem and he’s used to playing in front of a passionate crowd in Naples.
‘He was probably one of the mainstays that first season at Fulham and he handled the big stage well. Once we were relegated, it was inevitable that he would go out on loan. I think it says everything that he went to Villarreal and played 40 games in La Liga. After that, he was getting linked with Real Madrid.
‘He came back and played in the Premier League for Fulham but once again found himself in a struggling team.
‘After another relegation, he was back out again this time to Napoli. He was always loaned to a better team, he was never moving down levels. They made the move permanent this summer and it’s honestly no shock to see him running the show against Liverpool.’
McDonald himself left Fulham in 2021, just months after undergoing a kidney transplant.
The 33-year-old recovered sufficiently to stage a comeback and, after six months without a club, signed a short-term deal with Dundee United, playing nine times in the second half of last season.
Capped five times by his country, McDonald (below) hadn’t played domestically in Scotland since leaving Dundee as a teenager.
His £500,000 move to Burnley commenced a long stint in England that also took in transfers to Sheffield United and Wolves, and he relished the chance to move closer to his family roots in Carnoustie as he relaunched his career.
He offers an interesting critique on the overall standard of the Premiership.
Regular watchers of Scottish football are accustomed to players tearing around the pitch and banging into opponents. A cultured footballer, McDonald found much of it to be a complete waste of energy.
He says: ‘I’d played in England my whole career and it was very different to what I’d been used to.
‘I found Scottish football hectic. It didn’t need to be hectic. I’m quite laid back as a person and as a footballer, too. That’s what I tried to bring to that United team but it was just chaos!’
McDonald has not played since leaving Tannadice but is at pains to stress that he has neither retired nor suffered any recurrence of his prior health issues.
‘I get regular checks on that and everything seems to be fine,’ he says. ‘I was close to signing for Derby over the summer but I had a problem with my back. I’ve been offered the chance to go back in and train at Fulham so I’ll probably take them up on that.
‘Hopefully, I’ll get back playing soon.’