Interview: Mark McGhee, football manager

Published on Friday 4 December 2009 23:12

IT IS just as well that Mark McGhee is not the type to lie back and cogitate, since he might never leave his bed for the crippling whirl of 'what if?' which could accumulate inside his head. Yesterday, for example, he might have been in Cape Town undertaking his duties as Scotland manager at the draw for the World Cup finals.

We will never know if his suave, self-confident brand of management would have taken Scotland where George Burley could not, just as we will never know whether McGhee might have followed in the footsteps of his old friend Gordon Strachan in more dynamic fashion than Tony Mowbray has so far achieved at Celtic.

True to form, McGhee can't be persuaded to indulge in such pointless contemplation. He stares back blankly when asked whether he has any regrets, and later employs the phrase beloved by all who view with distaste those who agonise over what they perceive to be missed opportunities: what's meant for you won't go past you.

This old Aberdeen hero was clearly destined to return to Pittodrie, and did so in the summer. But the road back to the north-east was complicated by his appearance on the short-list for the managerial vacancy at Celtic Park, something which subsequently saw him passed over in favour of Mowbray. Given the Parkhead side's struggles it's possible to regard this as a close shave. Some might also view his failure to gain a Scotland post that was offered to Burley as a career enhancing stroke of fortune. McGhee has avoided train-wrecks the way he once did defenders.

But it just so happens that the Scotland job is available once more. McGhee, however, is not, although the ambition that continues to pulse within him won't permit him to rule it out in the future.

"You asked me if I have any regrets in football," says McGhee. "Well, I never got to a World Cup or a European Championship as a player so I would love to do it as a manager. One day I would like it (the Scotland job]. But it's timing as well. And the timing just now does not suit.

"Someone asked me whether the Scotland job was a poisoned chalice, and I said 'no'. I think it is a really good job with potential. It did not work for George for whatever reason. George is a good manager but that job just didn't work for him. Sometimes that happens. Some jobs just don't work out. George just did not fit into that job. It does not mean to say that someone else won't be able to come in and achieve more than what George was able to achieve.

"Scotland can be a lot better in the next couple of years", he adds, cheerleading again for the Scottish game. "For someone it could be a really good job."

That someone is not McGhee, who has begun to impose his will on an Aberdeen side that now exhibits signs of their new manager's influence. They are hungrier and, courtesy of the more serious gym work demanded by McGhee, much meaner too. It is a long way from the meek surrender of a summer evening in late July, when McGhee was powerless to prevent his reign getting off to the kind of false start that saw inevitable concerns swell within not only himself, but also his employers.

According to the manager, the loss of status he suffered in 90 emasculating minutes against Sigma was swift and terrible, diminishing him from "legend to idiot" in the eyes of the Pittodrie support. He acknowledged that he had to "claw my way back" in the eyes of some fans.

The recovery has been steady, to the extent that he stands on the brink of achieving something not seen at Pittodrie since the early days of Alex Ferguson's reign: back to back wins over the Old Firm. In view of McGhee's summer activities, today's visit to Celtic Park would have felt notable in any case. But following last week's win over Rangers, a rare brace is in prospect. It is also, he has been informed, his 800th match as a manager, since starting out at Reading in the early Nineties.

Of course, the significance attached to successive wins over Scotland's two biggest clubs is dimmed by the knowledge that it is not every season that Aberdeen are handed such a double-header, although it did occur last season. A 4-2 victory over Celtic was followed by a goalless draw with Rangers. It meant Jimmy Calderwood's side could not quite emulate the deeds of Ferguson's team in the late Seventies, when Rangers and then Celtic were dispatched – with McGhee grabbing the winner in the latter match.

"It will be a good one to put to bed," says McGhee. A defeat over Celtic – who defeated Aberdeen rather too easily on the first day of the season at Pittodrie – would also underline where his loyalty lies. Some were taken aback when McGhee turned up at Pittodrie in the summer and immediately admitted that he needed to see out the interview process at Celtic before feeling able to commit himself to the Pittodrie club. They were, he confirmed, his first choice, though Aberdeen remained a very appetising fall-back option. He argues that this confession simply brought things out into the open, to the benefit of everyone.

"That's what I wanted to do," he says now. "I didn't want any suggestion that I wasn't happy to be at Aberdeen, that I was coming with a hangover having not got the Celtic job. I wanted to demonstrate that this was not the case, that these were two great jobs, and I was lucky to be considered for both of them. But I was entitled to consider both of them too. From that point I have been trying to prove (that I want to be here]. Of course, one of the ways of doing that is by beating Celtic this weekend."

McGhee was noticeably composed following last week's win over Rangers, and is experienced enough to know that his young side, while equipped to post such eye-opening results, will run a-ground on occasion. After last week's victory he rated the team's progress since the Sigma debacle as a three on a scale of 1-10. Now, as he sits in an up-market Glasgow hotel, he is prepared to be a little more generous: "Maybe four is more like it," he says. "I hope it's four – because that's how much more we can improve and how much there is still to come."

McGhee also contends Aberdeen are four points worse off in the league than they deserve to be – with the recent loss at Hibs, when the side were reduced to nine men, still sticking in the throat.

"We have only just started this project, or whatever you want to call it," he says. "We are trying to build it. Jimmy (Calderwood – his predecessor] got two fourth-placed finishes. We want to build something that is better than that. And we are only just getting started. Because of last weekend it has suddenly been fast-tracked – but if it happens, if we beat Celtic immediately after Rangers, it will just be two results along the way."

Although he barely knows Calderwood, McGhee expresses a touching regard for his predecessor. The wrench felt by Calderwood when he left Pittodrie in the summer was intensified by a trio of names that he knew were waiting in the wings; Michael Paton, Peter Pawlett and Fraser Fyvie are players who Aberdeen feel can help take them to another level. Willie Miller, his old team-mate and Pittodrie director of football, had told McGhee to expect to be impressed, but the manager has been blown away by the talent that has fallen into his lap.

"As much as I accepted what Willie said, I could not believe they were as good as they are," he says. "But Willie was convinced and has said: 'I told you so'. He spent a lot of time developing the youth policy. These players were not ready for Jimmy. There is no suggestion for instance that I am getting more from them than Jimmy. That's not the case. A year ago these lads were not ready. They are ready now. Willie re-assured me when I took the job that this was the case. I accepted his word for it because he is a good judge. And that's been proven to be the case.

"To think that Jimmy got two fourth place finishes in the last two years. Had you added Fyvie, Paton and Pawlett to that mix, even at this early stage of their development, I am sure he could have done even better."

But McGhee is not the type to be overly sentimental, as was shown by his decision to remove his former team-mate Jim Leighton from the coaching staff in the opening weeks of his tenure. That, he explains, was because he had to "put the club before a relationship", although he has not spoken to Leighton since. And he is realistic enough to know that if he hadn't profited from the fruits of Aberdeen's youth project, someone else would have settled in at Pittodrie, and prevented him from achieving one of the targets he set himself at the beginning of his managerial career, 799 games ago.

He wanted to sample life back at the clubs where he had played, specifically Aberdeen, Celtic and Newcastle United. His appointment at Aberdeen has seen him scratch one itch, but he remains, by his own assessment, a dissatisfied customer. He would interpret it as a sign of hunger, while the Aberdeen fans might sense, with some dread, a restlessness. "As a manager I feel totally unfulfilled," he concludes. "I thought I would spend all my days managing in the Premiership. That leaves me quite empty in a way. So there is still a lot to do. "