Scott Brown in an Aberdeen shirt?
It’s an image that Scott McDonald is struggling to visualise and not just because he’s 16,000 miles away in Australia. News of his old skipper’s potential career path to Pittodrie has travelled Down Under fast.
That McDonald’s former Brisbane Roar boss Robbie Fowler yesterday also threw his hat into the ring as an alternative candidate to the Brown and Stephen Glass dream team, provided an interesting plot twist where the veteran Aussie is concerned.
McDonald remains close with both of them. But, while he believes Fowler might flourish if given the gig in the Granite City, he remains to be convinced that Brown’s best interests can be served with a player/coach role in the North East.
He said: “I don’t see Brownie getting a position in the first team coaching staff at Celtic so I can understand why he’ll be looking at Aberdeen as a great opportunity.
“If he wants to keep playing, fair enough. I don’t think he should stay at Celtic because if it goes badly next season he’s going to be the one who gets all the blame. And let’s be honest there’s more chance of it going badly than going well. Even if it does go well I don’t think he’ll be getting as many games as he would like.
“I’m not saying he’s past it but, no matter what happens, it’s probably time for a new start. I’d have liked to have seen him getting out of Scotland all together but he clearly has other ideas at Pittodrie. He’ll be in for a nasty surprise if he goes back to Celtic Park in an Aberdeen shirt. But hey if it works for him then that’s all that matters.”
McDonald is speaking from his own bitter experience. He spent the best part of three years at Celtic, scoring goals and winning trophies alongside Brown.
Now 37, McDonald is back home leading the line for Brisbane Roar after Fowler lured him there at the start of last year. There’s plenty of miles on the clock now but he still feels a little bit raw at the way it all ended for him in Glasgow.
And he fears his old mate might be about to make the same mistake.
He went on: “Brownie will quickly realise he’s playing with a different level of player and that takes a bit of adjustment. How does he handle that? That’s going to be hard because he’s been involved at the highest level for 13 years.
“So there’s a lot for him to think about. Obviously, he will always be welcomed back at Celtic so he does have that safety net. But he’ll be surprised by how it feels to be at another Scottish club. I know how much I hated it.”
Those scars run deep. McDonald explains: “It’ll be strange for Scott. The hardest bit will be the first time he goes back, trust me. If you end up on the end of a thumping you just want off the pitch.
“I remember going with Motherwell and we got skelped 7-0. I was looking over at Mark McGhee, giving him the puppy dog eyes like, ‘Is there any chance of subbing me off here man?’.
“F****** hell! It was pure humiliation. We were 7-0 down after 60 minutes and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’m getting murdered out here. Take me off Mark, please!’ Every time the board came out I was going, ‘Please be me’. But no chance, he left me right out there.”
It wasn’t his only bruising experience either. McDonald went on: “There was another time when I refused to go out for the second half because Mark had come up with a clever formation and it wasn’t working.
“It was a 4-2-2-2 and he wanted the strikers to follow Kieran Tierney and Mikel Lustig all the way back. I spent 45 minutes tackling the corner flag and wondering, ‘How am I supposed to score from back here?’.
“We were 2-0 down by half time. I played 45 minutes at my own corner flag chasing these guys and our two midfielders were the ones who were closing down the centre-halves.
“I couldn’t fathom for the life of me why they were not up against the full-backs so we could go against the centre-halves and I said as much to Mark at half time.
“He said to me, ‘If you don’t want to be out there then don’t f****** go!’ and I just said, ‘I’ll tell you what, I f****** won’t then!’.
“He just looked at me like we were in a standoff at the OK Corral. So I just took one of my boots off and he exploded again. In the end I never went back on. But what did he do in the second half? He changed the system to what I said it should have been and we kept it to 2-0.
“That was me in the bad books. I had to go grovelling the week after. But come on. I was chasing Tierney every two minutes. I was totally humiliated until I let my ego get the better of me and told the manager that I wasn’t prepared to do it any longer. ‘I’m not doing it - I’m not here to chase the full backs. I am not a winger!’.
“But that’s the hardest part about going back to Celtic with another club. I didn’t want to return to Scotland after I played for Celtic. I wanted to be remembered for scoring goals in a Celtic shirt. That didn’t happen.
“As for Scott? He’ll always be remembered for playing for Celtic, he’s lifted enough trophies.
“He’s unfortunate because if he had won another title this year they’d have been building a statue for him outside the front door. But that’s not going to happen now either.”
