If you were a young player given the Aberdeen captain’s armband, it would be very difficult to be telling Scott Brown what he should be doing.
I’m sure Scott wouldn’t see it that way, but Stephen Glass’ decision to hand the former Celtic skipper the armband feels like a natural one.
I touched on Joe Lewis being captain last season, and how, if I’m coaching, managing or even playing for a team, I always prefer my captain to be a centre-half or midfield player.
It’s an individual choice and Stephen feels he wants an outfield player as captain. I would feel exactly the same, and for me it’s best to be someone outfield who can get messages across to players who are within 20 yards.
That’s no disrespect to Joe, who has been a fantastic signing, but I feel this is a good choice. It also tells me that if he’s captain of the team, it looks like Scott is going to be playing.
People thought that when Scott came up he would be doing what he did in his last year at Celtic, but I don’t think he was probably happy with that.
Scott obviously feels he can play another couple of seasons. That was probably big factor in his move, as he wasn’t going to be sitting on his backside on the bench.
He will be looking forward to the challenge and he will be gathering all the boys with him and driving his younger team-mates on.
The Aberdeen fans want players to be proud to play for their club, and show that fight and grit. At times they did last season, but there are too many times they didn’t.
You can’t switch off and on when you feel like it. That light gets switched on from the first game on Thursday, and it has to remain on.
Scott certainly won’t buy into the feeling that, because they haven’t had a competitive game, Aberdeen can’t be competitive when they face BK Hacken in their Europa Conference League qualifier on Thursday.
I haven’t heard too much about the Swedish outfit, so it’s a bit of an unknown one for me. I’m sure Stephen will have done his homework on them.
I know through previous experiences, such as Skonto Riga, you can’t treat any team too lightly.
They might be sitting eighth in the Swedish Allsvenskan, but they have got 11 competitive games under their belt whereas Aberdeen have had none.
The Dons have had a couple of friendlies against St Johnstone and Caley Thistle, so it’s still pretty early for them and they will need to be on their toes.
Stephen is still piecing together his team. With a new manager and a few new signings, with a couple more possibly to come in as well, the team probably won’t take shape fully until about a quarter of the way through the season.
Although he will know he will need to be scrutinising them for the first dozen games at least.
Stop-start situation at Ross County must be so frustrating for Malky Mackay
Ross County endured another frustrating weekend as a second successive Covid-19 call-off against Dundee eliminated them from the Premier Sports Cup before they have kicked a ball.
I had a good chat with Malky Mackay and Don Cowie who were up at Brora Rangers’ game against Forfar Athletic on Saturday.
Malky was joking that he could be the first manager to get sacked without having played a game.
At the time, he felt the goals against column could be costly, but it is now out of the Staggies’ hands as any result in tomorrow’s match between Montrose and Dundee will take one of those teams beyond County’s reach.
I’ll be at County’s game against Montrose on Saturday, and they are up at Brora before that in midweek.
It has been really frustrating for Malky, he can’t wait to get his teeth into the job, but it has been really stop-start for them at the moment.
I’m quite sure there will be a few more signings to come in at Dingwall.
Malky has already brought in Southampton defender Jake Vokins and Manchester City midfielder Alex Robertson on temporary deals, and I would expect quite a few more loan signings in to come in as well with the connections Malky has got.
Great to see fans return ramping up
It’s fantastic to see crowds slowly start to make their way back into grounds across Scotland.
Teams who have played in the Premier Sports Cup have already experienced their first spectators for some time, while Aberdeen will have just under 6,000 at Pittodrie when they face BK Hacken on Thursday and Celtic will have around 9,000 for tonight’s Champions League qualifier against FC Midtjylland.
I know there has been good news in England with a lot of restrictions being lifted. Without going into Covid-19 too much, I think everybody expects things to rise, but if we can get a hold of it the prospect of fans being back will provide a huge boost.
It was fantastic to see crowds for the Formula 1 at Silverstone, as well as at the Open Championship at Royal St George’s over the weekend.
There will be people picking Covid-19 up, but hopefully in the next while we will be in a position where people don’t need to jump up and be alerted.
I remember years ago people would say “this person isn’t here today because they have got the flu,” and they would take three or four days off work. Hopefully we will get to the stage where that is what we have to deal with.