Former Rangers “wonderkid” Charlie Adam has hit out at Scott Brown for thinking he could walk back into the Scotland team ahead of other people, and suggested that he and others – “the best players” – are being omitted from the international squad due to some bias.
He never specifies what that bias might be.
He doesn’t appear to know.
The idea that Gordon Strachan is deliberately snubbing his best players is the kind of thing you’d expect to read from one of the more slavering fan sites. Adam needs to take a break from being the Crown Prince of Narnia and come back to reality for a wee while, although here he’s just a footballer who was hyped to the hills.
Has he really not considered that Brown is back in the team at the request of the players – none went to Gordon’s door clamouring for his own inclusion, which is telling – or that team selection is actually based on merit? Didn’t he consider that what Brown has done was an act of patriotism?
Adam left Ibrox many moons ago, but the sense of entitlement is still there, still clear, still strong in him. This petulant rant will have done nothing to endear him to a manager who’s obstinacy is well known and much lamented; I think he’d have had Leigh Griffiths leading the line months ago if people hadn’t started demanded it.
Charlie Adam hasn’t played for Scotland since a friendly in Qatar last year.
If he’d have announced his own international retirement back then few would have noticed. The thing of it is, he’s actually not a bad player … but he suffers from that age old sin amongst footballers of not being nearly as good as he thinks he is.
Indeed, it’s not actually clear why he’s chosen to attack Brown, as Brown’s inclusion or not would have made exactly zero difference to his own prospects.
In terms of being selected there’s still a queue the length of Argyle Street before Strachan would even consider him. Playing in the EPL does not an international player make; that’s another thing someone ought to explain to him.
As I said earlier in the week, I take a dim view of anyone giving Scott Brown a hard time over his decision to return to the international fold. The country needed him and he responded; this wasn’t a case of him simply deciding he fancied a shot at playing on the Wembley turf. The guy was playing in the Nou Camp not that long ago, and is still trying to get the crumbs of Andy Halliday out of his pockets; he’s not been swayed by a shot at glory.
Brown was asked. Brown was spoken to by fellow pros and after talking with the manager he’s come back in to lend the team some leadership in a crucial match. Who the Hell is Charlie Adam to second guess that, or whine about what it does to other players?
Those other players were the ones who asked Brown to step back in.
Adam is a decent footballer, who should have stuck to doing his talking on the park. As far back as August he was running to the press and telling them he thought his Scotland career was over; this is just more of the same, attention seeking nonsense.
At a time when the national team and the nation’s attention should be focussed on England, he’s seen a chance to remind us that he exists. He’s gotten another five minutes of media coverage. He should be ashamed of himself, because this won’t have harmed the team in the run up to the game, will it?
Maybe he didn’t think of that.
Or maybe, like many of a Rangers-Sevco persuasion, perhaps the Three Lions shirt is much closer to his heart than a patriotic Scot should want it to be?