The Sunday Times
 

Scotland's boy wonder
By Douglas Alexander , 21 November 2004

Scotland’s boy wonder is growing up.  Now all James McFadden wants is a chance at Everton.

Now that Berti Vogts has gone, some of his clichés can also be dismissed.  James McFadden, for instance, is a far more complex character than the “cheeky boy” christened by the former Scotland manager.  Although there is definitely a welcome streak of old-style swagger running through everything, from his performances to his haircut and designer stubble, there is a more reflective side to McFadden, too.

As he grows older, and he is still only 21, this side of his character will increasingly assert itself.  Already he has distanced himself from the scamp who failed to make the flight home from Scotland’s ill-fated tour to South Korea and Hong Kong two years ago.  The scandal was not that he went missing for a few hours after being given a night off at the end of the tour, but that the SFA, for reasons still best known to themselves, saw fit to fib about it in a cover-up of typical incompetence.

Others have been more honest when asked about McFadden.  David Moyes, his manager at Everton, was admirably blunt when assessing the player he paid Motherwell £1.25M for in a recent interview.  “He’s got things that few players have got.  However, at the moment he’s a bit like my teenage son in that everything he does is probably the wrong thing — ‘You’re not wearing that are you, you are not going out like that?’ — nearly everything they do goes awry because they’re trying so hard to pull it together.  James tries to take people on when he should pass, and he passes when he should be taking someone on.  James needs to make the right decisions at the right time.  He’s learning all the time and getting better.  For talent and ability, he’s got as much as any player at Everton.  His chances will come to play — no doubt.”

So far this season, though, McFadden has been limited to fitful cameos for his club side.  His starts have come in the Carling Cup, while his Premiership involvement sees him coming off the bench and asked to change games in Everton’s favour as they enter their closing stages.  He feels this brief partly explains the decision-making problems identified by Moyes.  “I think it is harsh to be judged on five minutes or 10 minutes and say, ‘Well, you are making the wrong decisions’.  I think I have always been a bit like that.  I am trying to improve on it but it is hard when you can’t put it into practice.  The games I have been put on, it has maybe been to get a goal.  I don’t think I have been on when we have been defending a lead and trying to keep it.  I have been on when we have been looking for a goal and the manager has been looking for something off me.  It’s hard when you are trying to do everything right in the 10 minutes you are on.  You are trying to play the killer pass, put in a good cross or have the shot that gets the goal that puts your team back in the game.”

It would be wrong, though, to imagine a rift between one of Scotland’s best young players and one of the nation’s best young managers.  McFadden’s increasing maturity is reflected in his understanding that he would be out of order complaining about his lot while Everton continue to exceed expectations at the top of the Premiership.  “We are third top and we have only lost three league games this season.  It is going well for the club and it would be petulant of me to moan when the club is going so well and take away from all the good work that the boys have done.

“I have never chapped on his door.  I spoke to the manager at the start of the season but he asked me into his office.  We had a talk about what he expected from me and what I expected from myself.  I told him I felt more confident and that if I felt the need to chap his door then I would but I never have.  The team is winning so it would be silly of me to go and and say ‘I think I should be playing’, because he could just turn round and say , ‘I don’t think you should be playing.  The team is winning, so go away’.” 

The knock-on effect for Scotland is a serious one and applies to more than McFadden among the best graduates from Rainer Bonhof’s under-21 team.  Darren Fletcher at Manchester United and Stephen Pearson at Celtic have been similarly peripheral so far this season, and therefore turn up for international duty short of match sharpness.  “If you’ve not been playing and you are expected to play in a game, it is hard to get up to speed,” admitted McFadden. 

“Your confidence isn’t as high as it should be so it is difficult.  It is a run of games I feel I need if I am going to get that confidence back.”  He still speaks regularly with Pearson and Steven Hammell, his former Motherwell teammates.  Hammell was called into the full Scotland squad for the first time last week and, having stayed at Fir Park, is the only one of the three still playing every week for his club.  McFadden could also have been in the same position as Pearson, currently riveted to Celtic’s bench, as both Old Firm clubs were interested in him but not prepared to match Motherwell’s valuation.

He doesn’t dwell on what might have been, pointing out that he is a different type of player to Pearson, but does stress that moving from Motherwell to Celtic or Everton is not quite the quantum leap it is made out to be.  “I don’t think it is as big a step as people think,” he said.  “I don’t feel as though I am out of my depth or anything like that.”

A loan move, possibly to one half of the Old Firm, in the January transfer window has been mooted, although McFadden feels it is more likely that Moyes will attempt to add to his Europe-chasing small squad with the proceeds of Wayne Rooney’s sale, rather than reduce it.  He has still to score for Everton, having missed a penalty in a Carling Cup tie against Bristol City earlier this season.  With mischievous Scouse humour, a few of his club supporters suggested a change of position after he was sent off saving Claus Lundekvam’s header in Scotland’s 1-0 defeat by Norway last month.  “The week or so after it was hard for me.  We were playing at Goodison and when I was warming up the fans were shouting, ‘Good save’, and, ‘Are you going in goals?’  It is disappointing not to have scored but last season I only played one game as a striker for Everton.  The rest were left wing or right wing.”

He has found scoring for his country less problematic.  Six goals in 20 appearances constitutes a prolific rate by Scottish standards, with the latest coming in the 4-1 friendly defeat by Sweden in midweek.  In the absence of Fletcher and Barry Ferguson, late withdrawals through injuries, McFadden was Scotland’s most threatening player on another depressing night, although, given his current club situation, he never takes his involvement as a given.

“Before the Norway game, I wasn’t playing and the manager pulled me aside and said I needed to show a bit more.  When every squad is announced I don’t take it for granted that I am going to be in or play.”

Ultimately, McFadden feels he let Vogts down after the manager defended him to the hilt in the wake of the Hong Kong incident.  “I think all the players were disappointed to see him go.  He believed in us and we believed in him.”  There is one thing that he won’t miss, however.  The “cheeky boy” references.  “It was meant in the right way, it just didn’t sound right,” he sighed.

An epitaph for the Vogts era perhaps, although McFadden may yet prove a worthwhile legacy of all the pain.

[The above is unedited and provided within ToffeeWeb for archival purposes.]