DEREK RIORDAN believes the only way he will get the opportunity to prosper at Celtic is if he outlasts Gordon Strachan. The frustrated former Hibs striker says the situation has reached stalemate, with his manager so concerned with protecting his own credibility that he is unwilling to risk giving him an extended run in the team.
"I only get chucked on if we need a goal so he must think I can get him a goal but he obviously doesn't want to do it unless he really has to because he doesn't want me to prove him wrong. He knows I would score quite a lot if he played me as much as
he has played the other strikers but I don't think he wants proved wrong," says Riordan. "When I speak to him, he's nice to me and says all the things players want to hear about me being part of the plans but you know by his actions that he's talking rubbish.
"It is frustrating. I was left out the squad (against Motherwell yesterday] and was training with the reserves on Friday. I've virtually chucked it at Celtic, what's the point when I'm not getting a chance."
Signed in June 2006 after his 64 goals in 146 appearances caught Strachan's eye, the striker was considered one of the brightest homegrown prospects. Voted Scottish Young Player of the Year by his peers the previous year and handed his first full Scotland cap against Austria by Walter Smith, he was confident he could cement a place in the Celtic starting line up. While the champions enjoyed a wealth of attacking options in Maciej Zurawski, Kenny Miller, Craig Beattie, Stilian Petrov, Shunsuke Nakamura, Shaun Maloney and Aiden McGeady, and added Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink to the squad as the 2006/07 season got under way, Riordan says he was assured he would be considered for more than a role in the chorus line.
"I went there thinking I was going to play. It's not like I just went there for the money, I wanted to play and I thought I would do well at Celtic with the amount of chances that teams like Celtic and Rangers create. I thought I would score a lot of goals and if I was given the chance every week I still believe I could. But I've just never had the chance."
A player at the end of his tether, he feels he has wasted two years of his career and the situation has left him feeling depressed and humiliated. Especially when he is sent on in the final minutes of games against his old club. An 89th minute sub against Hibs earlier this term, he said he was hurt. "That was a kick in the teeth. That was embarrassing. I did well when I was there and some of the Hibs fans said I shouldn't go, so that was embarrassing, but it's always the same, it's the last few minutes if I do get chucked on."
He says there are times he does regret leaving Easter Road. "You see loads of other young players getting in the Scotland squad and everybody has gone ahead of me so it's very frustrating. I'm not being big-headed but I was one of the well-known ones at Hibs because I was doing so well and scoring so many goals but now you see all of them, they are the ones who are playing every week and in the Scotland squads and it's annoying. Depressing.
"I feel let down by the manager. I remember him sitting in my mum's house trying to sign me and he said I could play anywhere in his midfield or up front. It was the same in the press conferences but now I can only play left midfield for some reason and that's not even my best position.
"I have a year left of my contract in the summer but I can sign a pre-contract in December. I'm 25, I want to be playing. It will just depend if the manager is still here or who else comes in. I'll see who the next manager is before I decide. I don't want to be here and not playing but I would like to stay at Celtic if I thought I had a chance to play. I know I won't get that chance with him. I've been here nearly two years and it's not happened yet so I don't see it happening now. But Celtic are brilliant. I like it here and would love to prove myself but the nasty thing is not playing."
Fully aware that his career has stalled, he says the most upsetting aspect is that he is still at a loss to explain why. Compared to the other six strikers who have vied for the two forward berths during his period at Celtic, his goals to minutes on the park ranks him ahead of Zurawski, Miller and Beattie and only marginally behind Vennegoor of Hesselink and McDonald, who have had the luxury of extended runs in the team in a central striking role, while even Georgios Samaras has had more starts since his arrival in January than Riordan has enjoyed all season. Sitting in amongst the Celtic support at Ibrox last week – denied a place on the bench because he had a day off after his grandmother passed away – he was buoyed by their comments. "They were saying 'you should be out there playing' and that helps. The Celtic fans have been brilliant. They know something is not right. They are the only people I will thank at Celtic if I leave."
Something certainly seems awry when a club fails to score in four consecutive Old Firm games and draws a blank in four of their last six games, yet still doesn't include one of the club's form strikers in the squad. "Willie McStay was saying that I'm now top scorer in the reserves but to be honest it doesn't seem to really matter how well I do while the gaffer is at Celtic, I just don't think I will get in the team anyway for some reason. I don't know what it is. Everybody is always wondering what it is and I can't tell them because I don't even know myself. There have been loads of rumours, I'm supposed to have slept with his daughter or sister or punched him on the training ground but they are all a load of rubbish. There's nothing that I can think of I've done wrong to him. There's been no bust ups. I don't know what his problem is with me."
But there is, undoubtedly, some issue unresolved. Since joining Celtic, the player has made just 13 starts and 19 substitute appearances, amounting to a meagre 1,036 minutes of first-team football. So inexplicably out-of-favour Only An Excuse ridiculed the situation in a sketch with Strachan choosing between a blind man, a granny, a drunk and Riordan. The drunk got the nod.
"What was really hard was when we won the league last season and I didn't feel part of it," says Riordan, who made just enough outings to earn a champions medal but didn't feel he had earned it. "And the Scottish Cup final, when I didn't get on, I didn't feel part of it when we won. That was the biggest kick in the teeth because when we played Hibs in the last game of the season, I played up front with Craig Beattie and scored our only goal but the next week in the cup final Craig Beattie got on before me. I didn't even get on yet I'd scored in the game before it. Explain that one to me."
In the semi-final of the competition, against St Johnstone, Strachan was booed by the Celtic support when he took Riordan off. It offered him some solace at the time but he now fears it backfired. "A lot of people have thought that was one of the worst things that could have happened, they think he's not playing me because of that. He doesn't want to look like he is giving in to people.
"The thing is I don't mind being behind guys like Aiden McGeady, because Aiden has had a brilliant season but with other players, he just doesn't seem to change the team. They are all supposed to be big star players and that's what bugs me. Even if they play rubbish for three or four weeks on the bounce, they still get a game. The only ones he really does change are Massimo Donati and Paul Hartley."
Having bided his time, the player says he could be ready to throw in the towel. "But that doesn't matter because they are not letting me away. I don't understand why. They got me for near enough nothing, I think it was £170,000 and clubs have offered to pay a lot more than that so they would make money on me. Why not let me go instead of me wasting away in the reserves. What's that about?"
Prepared to leave in the January transfer window, the £400,000 offer tabled by Burnley was rejected by the Parkhead club, leaving the player even more downbeat. While reports suggested the club had made the decision based on finances – apparently seeking a fee closer to £1m – the forward was told it was a football decision and that he would be needed in the title run-in. Since then he has played just six minutes, sent on in the vain hope of salvaging the Scottish Cup quarter-final replay last month.
One suggestion is that the player's off-field antics have annoyed Strachan but Riordan argues he has kept his nose clean since December 2006, when he was charged in relation to an assault on a pub steward. "And I was found not guilty so that proved a point. I've not done anything wrong."
The other theory is that, like Kris Boyd, another goal-getter, the player doesn't contribute enough in all-round play. Quizzed pre-season about Riordan's projected involvement, Strachan said he didn't need convincing that the Edinburgh lad was a good player but hinted that more was required. "He has ability and talent. But it was Gary Player who said that he did a thousand press ups a day and ran up hills. When he was a kid he had talent but he enhanced it. There are people like that with talent and there are people who enhance it. There are a lot of good players here and that's why everyone needs to prepare properly, do everything right and take no chances."
It is an area of discord, with some close to the player claiming it unreasonable to expect him to improve on his weaknesses without the kind of coaching that helps born attackers embrace defensive nuances. "My game is about scoring goals. The bad part of my game is defending but it always has been and it was when I was at Hibs. He would have known that from watching me and he still signed me and said he thought I could play for Celtic. But I think I have worked hard since I went to Celtic. I think I work a lot harder than I did at Hibs. I have done everything I can to impress him."
Matters have reached a denouement following the death of both grandparents within the space of a month. On both occasions, Riordan took the following day off to be with his family and was left to languish in the stand come match day. "It just gave him another excuse to leave me out the squad. That's the way I see it. He did it when my grandad died so I expected it again last weekend." To stave off such an outcome he did consider going in but was too upset and decided in the end that his family had to come first. "I don't know what he expects. But it was just one day and it seems to be fine for other players to miss out on a day's training and they actually get put in to play the games."
Over the past two years, he has learned he is apparently subject to a different set of rules. Yesterday, as his team-mates attempted to get their title bid back on track, Riordan was away getting his hair cut. There was a time when he was considered a cut above his peers, now the disheartened talent is on the periphery, pulling the stuff out.
The full article contains 2116 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
