AN Achilles injury may have ruled Shaun Maloney out of Scotland's match in Wales but the Celtic player is confident he can recapture his early season form and gives Tom English an honest assessment of life with club and country
WHEN SHAUN Maloney refers to his Scotland career as unfulfilling and a bit stop-start you don't need to press him to know the details; the frustration is written on his face. He's a touch melancholy when he describes why he won't be figuring at the C
ardiff City Stadium this weekend. It's his Achilles, he says. It's been bugging him for a while now. When the Scotland boys will be getting ready to go to Wales, Maloney will be on a plane heading for London, where he will see a specialist to find out the extent of the damage. "Not too bad, I hope," he smiles. "Aye, I'm sure it'll be fine."
It's not been an easy season for Maloney. Not been an easy few seasons, in fact. You hear certain things about the Celtic midfielder. You hear that he's bright and friendly, which he unquestionably is. You also hear that he's impressively honest, which is also the case. He is talking about the start of his season and how well it began for him, the chances created and the goals scored, the general devilment in his stride that has, for a month or so, deserted him somewhat.
Now, some players wouldn't talk this way. They'd opt out of this kind of self-analysis, but Maloney is different. He goes through a summary of what has happened to him this season like a man who has thought about this many times before.
"The inconsistency is something I'm disappointed with," he says. "Maybe it's a confidence issue. I just think as a team we were absolutely flying at the beginning of the season, playing the type of football that we all wanted to play. Myself and Aiden (McGeady] were having big impacts on games. But it's been quite intense the last month or so. As a team, we haven't played well. I have to take some of that on myself for my performances because from the start of the season to maybe six games ago – maybe more – the impact I've had was not what it could be. It should have been a bit better."
He thinks he should have had more influence and more goals. In the summer, Tony Mowbray sat down with himself and McGeady and told them their roles would be changing, that they would be expected to come infield more often and take more of the goalscoring burden upon themselves. Mowbray was looking for both men to get into double figures.
For McGeady, that's unchartered territory. He's only ever managed eight in a season to date. For Maloney, it's another story. He once managed to score in six consecutive games for Celtic and finished that 2005-06 season with 16 goals to his name and all the player of the year awards on his sideboard.
"It's not out of the question the manager asking us to do that. If anything, myself and Aiden will be asking the same if not more from ourselves. I have four so far, but it should be more. If I'd taken the chances I had this season I'd be comfortably into double figures already. I've had a lot of opportunities. Finishing is something that definitely has to get better in my game. I could go back to the Moscow games, near enough every league game, in Tel Aviv if I'm not offside I'd have scored, Rapid Vienna I've got one v one with the keeper, Hamburg I've got to score when it comes over, Rangers I've got two chances in a minute. These are the reasons you spend so long on the training ground, to try and improve your strike-rate. There's that old line about 'Ah well, at least you're getting yourself in the position to score', but I never accepted that as an excuse. I don't take any positives from that at all."
We have only seen the best of Maloney in bits and pieces since his return from Aston Villa. He's still only 26, though. He's got time to rediscover the kind of stuff that tempted Martin O'Neill into a bid. That period of his career was an interesting one. Frustrating, sure. But educational.
His job was to break into a four-man Villa midfield where three places were already pretty much nailed down. Gareth Barry, Nigel Reo-Coker and Stiliyan Petrov were established long before Maloney ever arrived at Villa Park, then Martin O'Neill splashed out over £9 million on Ashley Young of Watford. Usurping one of those boys was a task that proved beyond Maloney. He tried, but couldn't do it. There was no disgrace in that.
He has no regrets. Well, perhaps one. He signed in January 2007 and admitted in an interview that summer that he had yet to settle in Birmingham. The word "homesick" was used and it stuck. "That was my own fault. I shouldn't have said that. I said I hadn't settled and it was probably true at the time I said it. But then I had a full season after that and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
"Apart from not playing regularly, that is. I couldn't blame the manager for not playing me. I know if I've played well or not and I didn't do it often enough. I can hardly start banging doors down. I trained as hard as I could but didn't play well enough to stay in the team. I don't pine to be back there but I'm still quite proud to say I played for that club."
Getting left out of George Burley's squad for the Northern Ireland friendly was the catalyst for his return to Celtic, the moment when he realised he needed to get himself out of Villa. The prodigal returned but the sustained excellence of 2005-06 still eludes him.
He's had injuries, of course. He tore his hamstring last December and missed a lot of games. He came back and tore it again. Towards the end of last season, when Maloney was passed fit once more, Gordon Strachan made a comment about him needing to overcome some mental block about the injury.
"I remember exactly the quote. He and the doctor at the time had spoken about my hamstring injury. They said I had to get the mental issue sorted out, that it wasn't going to happen for a third time and that I was fine to push on. They were worried that I still harboured doubts that the hamstring would go again when, in fact, I was just wanting to make sure the rehab was done correctly. I was a bit annoyed at that, but you can hardly give out to your manager. We talked about it. He was fine, to be fair."
Life under Mowbray has yet to settle down, but these things take time, he says, The manager is making subtle but significant changes to the way Celtic play and it's not easy to adapt in a hurry. As for Scotland, it his goal to get established in the team. It's why this week will be difficult for him, watching Burley's side from his home rather than playing a part in Cardiff.
"You have a lot of goals you set yourself, with Celtic and with Scotland, and securing a regular starting place for my country is one of the big ones. I'm not sure how often I've played consecutive matches for Scotland, but maybe once or twice. Not often enough, anyway. I just want to get this wee Achilles thing out of the way and then kick-on."
This interview was carried out courtesy of Scotland's national team main sponsor, Tennent's Lager. 