Despite everything McGhee is still the one

FOOTBALL continues to honour Phil O'Donnell. Yesterday at Tynecastle, just as at other grounds last week, the memory of him was everywhere.

His Motherwell team-mates wore special jerseys that bore his signature and will wear them for the rest of the season. There was a special programme with his face on the cover and some emotional words inside and, on Friday, confirmation of a special tribute. At Fir Park, the main stand is being named after him. I'm sure the O'Donnell family are touched that people thought so much of their son, husband and father to do such things. I'm also of the opinion that they may wish now for it all to stop before it gets mawkish and suffocating.

Most of us who have lost loved ones will have some kind of understanding of the pain the O'Donnells are experiencing. But only up to a point. We in the media probably think we are doing the family good by continuing to celebrate his life (and here I go again) but what if his people just want to get on with mourning his death without the hubbub? Seeing his picture in the paper every day, seeing the floral tributes outside Fir Park, hearing updates of how the game loved him and intends to immortalise him – you have to wonder if it is beginning to do more harm than good at this point.

It was interesting to hear the views of Mark McGhee during the week. The Motherwell manager did not want a minute's applause for his former captain at Tynecastle yesterday. McGhee's moral strength has been impressive in all of this. He has been a rock. Clearly he believes now that the public mourning should give way to private reflection. And he's right. What other option is there? By yesterday the time had come for Motherwell and Scottish football in general to return to business as usual and that is what McGhee is attempting to do. He has spoken impressively about his wish to get his team back playing with a smile on their faces.

But McGhee is having to deal with something at the moment that is grossly unfair on him. As everybody knows he is the leading contender to succeed Alex McLeish as Scotland manager despite the story early last week that Tommy Burns had come in from left field and entered the equation in a very serious way. Burns might be a fine football man but he is not box office and if there is one thing you can be sure of it is that Gordon Smith, the chief executive of the SFA, will be looking for a marquee name, in a Scottish context at any rate, when making this appointment. Of all the characters supposedly in the running, Burns is the least glamorous of them all. Nobody has yet given me an even halfway plausible theory that supports his chances of getting the gig.

McGhee remains the favourite but this notion that it might be somehow inappropriate for him to accept the Scotland job in the wake of O'Donnell's death has been getting a good airing. It has been speculated widely that he is now in a difficult position, that the club and its supporters are in a raw state and that the last thing they all need is the manager leaving.

That's a fair amount of emotional pressure to lay at one man's door, is it not? So let's get this right. McGhee is supposed to stay at Motherwell indefinitely, thereby giving up his chance of managing his country, because the club is still feeling fragile over O'Donnell's death? Words like "abandon" and "betray" have been used in conjunction with this supposed dilemma he is facing. One newspaper reported the other day that McGhee does not intend to "leave Motherwell in the lurch".

This is emotive talk and you would hope that Smith will pay no attention to it. If he doesn't think that McGhee is the man for them then fine. But don't let him base his decision on some fanciful idea that Motherwell are so vulnerable as a club right now that they would collapse if McGhee was to depart. All of this stuff about what is right and ethical is bound to resonate with McGhee, given what he did at Leicester, where he stayed for 11 months and then broke his contract to join Wolves. He has got terrible stick for that for many years despite holding his hands up about it. Last month he told me about the regret he feels even now when he thinks back to that period in his career.

"I'd be driving down the M1 and at Junction 21 there's a sign pointing to Leicester," he recalled in our interview. "After I left them I couldn't ever look at that sign out of pure embarrassment at what I did."

Last week McGhee jumped through hoops in stressing that he would never leave Motherwell if he thought people would resent him for it. I'm not sure they would. And I'd hope Smith sees it the same way because McGhee is the best man on his 'shortlist' and could make a fine national team manager, one with the personality to galvanise the team and the country and the nous to get his side playing attractive and competitive football.

Personally, I'd like to see McGhee finish the season at Fir Park and then move to Hampden full-time. Whether that constitutes abandoning Motherwell I'm not sure but I'd imagine the club will have recovered sufficiently by then to cope with his departure. Anybody who argues that Motherwell will still be too tender to contemplate the loss of their manager come June might be accused of stretching things a little too far. Way too far, in fact.

Boruc deal suggests climate for quick change

ARTUR Boruc has committed himself to Celtic but he may as well stick a For Sale on his back now for all the relevance his new contract has to his long-term future at Parkhead. "I know that if an offer comes in that is good for Celtic and good for me, the club will not make any problems for me," said the goalkeeper, directly after signing a new deal that will, in theory, keep him in Glasgow until 2011. You'd imagine he'll be long gone by then, though. To one of Europe's elite, if Boruc has his way, and for serious coin, if Celtic get their wish.

Asked if he fancied Italy, Boruc replied: "Milan have a great team and it is a beautiful city with great weather." Great weather, indeed. We assume that Peter Lawwell would have wholeheartedly endorsed Boruc's sentiments while pointing out the appeal of places like Madrid and Barcelona and not forgetting Los Angeles where the money, sorry I mean the climate, would have a great mutual appeal.

Selective memory, Ernie

ERNIE Els says he is going to be more selective about where he plays his golf this year and he's going to be more focused on the majors than ever before. "To be honest," he said, "there were maybe times in the past when I've tried to please too many people."

Ah yes, that'll be why Ernie has spent years popping up in strange tournaments in the four corners of the earth. He just wants to please people. It must be a coincidence that these people he likes to please tend to pay through the nose in order to have him around. Very pleasing indeed, Ernest.