Kari Arnason reckons Aberdeen manager Derek McInnes could do worse than considering his teammates from the Icelandic national team for future signings.
The 34-year-old has returned to Pittodrie with a spring in his step after helping his country qualify for the World Cup with a 2-0 victory against Kosovo on Monday.
It was another amazing achievement for the country, with a population of 335,000, which reached the quarter-finals of Euro 2016 by defeating England in France last summer.
Arnason has been surprised that the bigger clubs in Europe have overlooked the Icelandic players with only two members of the current squad – Everton’s Gylfi Sigurdsson and Burnley’s Johann Gudmundsson – currently plying their trade in the English Premier League.
Arnason said: “I couldn’t recommend the Iceland players highly enough.
“Whether they’re looking towards the Premier League in England, I don’t know.
“I can personally recommend every single one of them.
“We always wondered why the entire team isn’t picked up by clubs. The Iceland team would keep you in the Premier League in England. There’s no question about that.
“That hasn’t happened. There were a few boys who got good moves after the Euros but no big moves were made.
“Gudmundsson got a move to Burnley and the rest got moves within the Championship.
“People don’t realise how good these players are and what they’re willing to do for their club teams.
“There are some players who, if they weren’t playing for Iceland, they’d be playing for different teams.
“This is what dogs them in their careers and it helps to have that little chip on your shoulders all the time.
“This is how we feel when we pull on the Iceland jersey. We want to prove everyone wrong.”
The wild celebrations in Reykjavik were in stark contrast to the mood back in Scotland after Gordon Strachan’s side failed to qualify for next month’s World Cup play-offs.
Arnason, who is in the Aberdeen team to face Hibernian at Easter Road today, is disappointed the Tartan Army won’t be in Russia next summer.
He added: “I haven’t seen many Scotland games though I was gutted that they didn’t capture that second spot in their qualifying group.
“We play a different game. We bring the game to the level we want it to be.
“We’re comfortable with opponents having 75% of possession because we’re good at soaking up pressure. We’re a threat on set pieces and on the counter attack and that was the case in Turkey.
“They had 65% of the possession but we won 3-0 and it should have been 4-0.
“Possession doesn’t mean anything. We’re a very good unit and we play to our strengths and everyone puts everything into every game.
“We also know our limits, what we’re good at and we don’t veer from our tactics or our game plan, ever.”