Rob Maclean of the BBC thinks Graham Dorrans has done enough in a Sevco shirt to merit a recall to the Scotland team. I kid you not. He says his performances have him “making a strong push for an international recall.”
I’ve watched Dorrans in their televised games this season, and I know exactly what the Sevco fans think of his displays thus far; toothless, lazy, useless. He has scored a couple of goals, but so has Pena, and he still doesn’t look like a footballer to me.
This is a ridiculous suggestion, and it’s that for reasons that are obvious to anyone. It’s often been said that all it takes for a player to win caps in Scotland is one good game for Celtic or a club from Ibrox and this surely proves it except that I can’t recall when the good game he had was. Maclean says he was dominant in midfield; absolute cobblers. Sevco were on the back foot for the whole of the game until St Johnstone went down to ten men.
This isn’t about Sevco as much as it’s about the total lack of imagination and consideration for teams outside of Glasgow which is so prevalent amongst our media. There are players far more deserving of international caps and recognition that Dorrans, it’s just that they play for teams that don’t get the ink his does. The way Aberdeen’s players is overlooked, for one, is scandalous and their fans are right to be talking about boycotting the complete waste of time that is the Netherlands friendly if it’s going to be another Scottish side which ignores its talents.
Even with the best will in the world, no-one is going to suggest that Kenny McLean start before Stuart Armstrong or that Ross Draper is a better bet than Scott Brown, if he’s available and volunteers his services. But those guys have at least earned the right to be in the squad, along with Graeme Shinnie and Stevie May.
Dorrans has not. It is a joke that this is even being discussed.
This is to say nothing of young John McGinn; when Dorrans commands the midfield and scores twice at Celtic Park then we’ll talk, until then this is just bollocks.
Winning caps is the ultimate meritocracy, but in Scotland it’s so often about reputation and where someone plays rather than what he does. That’s never more true when some has-been at Ibrox is being touted for a cap. This one is especially ludicrous.
I don’t know what game Maclean was watching on Friday night but it wasn’t the one I was.
If he thinks that display merits a place in the Scotland squad then he is scandalously unsuited to being anything more than a star-struck fan. He knows nothing about the game at all.
I would say “thank God these people don’t have influence over national selection policy” … but I fear the worst here and strongly suspect Malky MacKay wants the job on a permanent basis and will do whatever he can to butter up the media in order to get it.
Don’t be surprised if Dorrans does make the squad, undeserving though he clearly is.