Steven Fletcher ‘needs to start scoring’
McCarthy had to declare an interest. He signed the player for Wolverhampton Wanderers from Burnley in 2010 for a club record fee of £6.5 million. “I said at the time I left he could play for any of the top-four sides,” said McCarthy yesterday. “He was that good. The injuries took the toll on him but he has ability, he’s good in the air and quick and a goalscorer.
“It’s a shame about the injuries but I saw his two goals [for Sunderland] against Crystal Palace the other week. His first was a header that was typically him and his second late one was a cold, calculated finish.”
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Hide AdIt is such form that frustrates Souness, who can see what the striker can do each weekend in his role as a television analyst. He just doesn’t see Fletcher do it often enough, certainly not for Scotland, for whom he scored his one and, to date, only goal five years ago.
Souness said: “We need a goalscorer, that’s what separates teams. He has one goal in 17 so he has to start scoring soon. That’s what Scotland miss just now, an out-an-out goal-getter.”
When it was put to him that Fletcher is someone as much valued for his link-up play – he has performed vital roles in two of Scotland’s three goals in the current campaign – Souness was unimpressed.
“You can have the other ten doing that,” he said. “You need someone to score goals. Look at Liverpool last year. You don’t always have to play well if you have someone who can nick games for you, and they had Sturridge and Suarez last year.”
“Robbie Keane at international level has a phenomenal record. We need someone to step up to the plate that can win us games without us being at our very best because you can’t always play well. But you can nick games if you have a goalscorer.”
Had things been different, Souness might well have been the one responsible for helping improve Fletcher’s goalscoring form in a Scotland shirt. Indeed, had the former Rangers and Liverpool manager rather than Craig Levein been offered the international post in 2010 after a round of interviews, Fletcher’s appearance total would likely now be greater than just 17 caps. The striker and Levein suffered a breakdown in relations that led to a near two-year exile, and a “lost” 16 games.
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On the subject of his own lost opportunity with Scotland, Souness is firm. He was never offered the manager’s job. According to him, the stipulation he could not live in England, rumoured to be a sticking point, was never mentioned by an interview panel that included the then Scottish Football Association president George Peat, vice-president Campbell Ogilvie and someone Souness refers to as “the player who was chief executive at Rangers”, Gordon Smith.
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Hide Ad“I was interviewed for the job but I was never offered the job. Let me make that clear,” said Souness. “I didn’t turn it down because the quality [of player] wasn’t there – I wasn’t offered it.”
With three European Cup titles and much more besides to his name as a player he has not, he conceded, needed to attend too many job interviews. “That was just the process – the only thing that pissed me off was that I heard I didn’t get the job through the newspapers,” he said. “No-one bothered to phone me.” Asked whether the desire to live in England had counted against him, he said: “No, it was never mentioned. Where does Gordon live?”
Souness looks like someone who wouldn’t much care for the strain and stresses of international management; McCarthy, with a sweep of receding white hair, shows signs of what can happen when you are put in charge of a group of international footballers with egos, including one of the most combustible of all – Roy Keane.
Keane, of course, returns to Parkhead on Friday as assistant manager to Martin O’Neill, one of McCarthy’s successors as Ireland manager. “If it works, it works,” said McCarthy, whose stormy relationship with the player has been documented in two Keane autobiographies, although relations are better these days. “I have never worked with Roy as a manager or coach, so I don’t know,” added McCarthy, on the subject of Keane’s worth to O’Neill. “Anything is good if results are going well.”
Asked whether, 12 years ago, he could have imagined Keane as a coach following his infamous walk-out at the 2002 World Cup, McCarthy, now manager of Ipswich Town, said: “You never know in football. You can’t predict what is going to happen. I am the longest serving manager in the Championship and I have only been there for two years.”
Something that is guaranteed on Friday is a hot reception for Paisley-born winger Aiden McGeady and Glasgow-born midfielder James McCarthy, if he overcomes injury. Barnsley-born McCarthy, who won 57 caps for Ireland argued that being booed should be taken as a compliment, one he was denied against England at the 1988 European championship finals. He said: “I can’t remember the England fans booing me – they didn’t think I was much good.
“I don’t think they thought I would have been playing at the heart of the England defence when we beat them. No one was thinking, ‘I wish Mick McCarthy was playing for England – they were probably thinking ‘thank God he isn’t!’”
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