MEET THE ELITE
McLean ready to embrace a quick-fire introduction to the top flight
IF Kenny McLean felt his elevation to elite company wasn’t complete upon leaving the King Baudouin Stadium to an ‘absolutely outstanding’ review by Steve Clarke, then it was surely confirmed to the Norwich City man some 36 hours later. After McLean proved much more than just an able barrier in a Scotland central anchor role against the blur of red brilliance featuring Kevin De Bruyne and Eden Hazard, the enormity of the task to maintain standards was laid bare by the Premier League fixtures release on Thursday morning.
They revealed that the 27-year-old would star on opening night, Friday August 9, at the home of the Champions League winners. Two weeks after kicking off the campaign at Anfield against Liverpool, Norwich host Chelsea.
The newcomers’ fifth league game is Manchester City and a rematch with arguably the best players in the world, De Bruyne. So McLean tackles the Treble winners, European Cup holders and Europa League winners — the top three from last season’s outstanding top flight — by mid-September.
The notion that this would be his schedule for the start of the 2019/20 campaign, when swiftly loaned back to Aberdeen upon signing for 13th-placed Championship outfit Norwich 18 months ago, was a touch fanciful.
When McLean suffered ankle-ligament damage against League Two Stevenage four games into his Canaries career last August that ruled him out of action for five months, simply establishing himself as a second-tier talent worth the transfer trouble for Daniel Farke was a far more pressing matter for the ex-St Mirren hero.
For all that’s happened since he sealed his exit from Aberdeen, there he was last Tuesday in Euro 2020 qualifying action as Scotland’s main man for a new manager and performing like a Premier League player-inwaiting. Although Scotland were worn down by the world’s best team and their golden generation of talent, this was the game in which McLean truly grew as an international midfielder. As a trial run for what awaits in 38 games at the top level for Norwich next season, it augured well for McLean being already primed to take his game to a new level. ‘I do feel ready,’ says McLean. ‘It’s going to be a tough, tough league. But anybody would want to be in the position I’m in right now. Going into the best league in the world, playing against the best.
‘Playing against Belgium was difficult but I felt as if I acquitted myself well enough against, arguably, the best midfielders in the world.
‘You want to put yourself in against the best to test yourself and, hopefully, next year I’m playing against the best again. In my opinion, De Bruyne is up there with the best in the world. It was a tough night — and it wasn’t just him.
‘The way they rotate, they’ve been playing together for a long time. Now that my season is definitely over, I can look back to see how much I’ve come on. I played in a tough league in the Championship and, in the second half of the season, played a lot of games.
‘It’s been hard but I’ve done myself justice. I can reflect on an excellent season as being a big bonus. I’ve played the last three games for Scotland and the last four or five months for Norwich.
‘I’ll take a few days off now, but next week I’ll be back to work. Then it’s back in on July 1 and ready to go with Norwich. Hopefully, I can take my game to the next level.’
McLean’s form in helping Norwich soar to a five-point title success was immediately franked by new Scotland
‘THE BELGIUM MATCH WAS DIFFICULT BUT I FELT THAT I ACQUITTED MYSELF WELL. THEY HAVE THE GREATEST MIDFIELD IN THE WORLD’
manager Clarke on his first double-header in charge. Of the seven central midfielders selected by Clarke in his 27-man squad for the Cyprus and Belgium tests, McLean was the only one to complete both 90 minutes.
With talent like fellow English Premier League new boy John McGinn, Manchester United’s Scott McTominay and treble Treble winner Callum McGregor available, midfield is the most congested department of the player pool.
McLean, left on the bench by Alex McLeish in Kazakhstan before scoring in San Marino, surely scrawled his name down as a starting certainty in Clarke’s future plans with his performance in both qualifiers.
‘I’ve come away with Scotland and the manager has put his faith in me for a reason — because he thinks I have the quality to do it for my country,’ said McLean. ‘It’s an honour and it’s excellent for me. I think we had seven central midfielders in the camp, so to play both games was brilliant.
‘I know for the next game, it could be a totally different team and I’m in no doubt it wouldn’t affect the team at all with the quality we’ve got in the squad. We have players playing across the Premier League, playing at a high level, so it’s exciting for the manager and I’m sure a good headache to have. It’s good competition for places but, for the manager to go with me is rewarding and something I’m grateful for.’
Clearly, Clarke had been convinced from McLean in training that his revelry from Norwich’s promotion party had not rolled on all through May. As the drink flowed, McLean declared himself the unofficial Mayor of Norwich after pinching his hat for the team’s appearance on the balcony at City Hall.
The comedy moments have made McLean a cult hero for his club’s support but he recognised the need for restraint as soon as the effects of swigging from a bottle of MD 20/20 at the title parade wore off. McLean knocked himself into shape for whatever plans Clarke had for him in a new national-team era which, he discovered early in the first week, meant a deployment deep in midfield.
‘We worked on shape as a team a lot and, more often than not, I was in that position, so I knew the role I had to play and knew what he wanted from me,’ McLean explained. ‘And when a manager shows faith in you like that you just try and repay him with performances. ‘Right away, the tactical discipline that every player had was striking. In both games, I’d say we didn’t have that instinct going forward enough. But we know that if we don’t concede and have that compactness, we will win games because we do have the quality going forward. ‘The discipline throughout the squad, the wide players working so hard, there was a togetherness throughout the squad. Everybody is pulling in one direction. The manager has us well-drilled and everybody knows
their jobs under him.’ When McLean returns to the Scotland camp with Premier League experience under his belt in September, the big guns of the group — Russia then Belgium — visit Hampden. The following month, Scotland go to Russia then host San Marino. ‘We’ll get more time with the manager to work again, which will only benefit us,’ said McLean. ‘Hopefully, we can have a sell-out at home, which makes a massive difference. You could hear them in Brussels and they were in the minority in the stadium. ‘So if we could get a 50,000 at Hampden, the difference it makes to the players on the pitch... it’s excellent. The games against Russia will be massive and those are games we need to be winning, there’s no doubt about it.’