Fletcher can flourish away from Old Trafford, says McGhee

There are some players who have sat on the bench so long that their rear ends have become fossilised and warming the substitutes' seat is not a role Mark McGhee wants to see Fletcher become best known for. The Scotland assistant manager believes the Dalkeith-born midfielder can spread his wings and flourish away from the Manchester nest that has become his footballing home. "I think that more than anything, he enjoys is playing," said McGhee, who acknowledges that, due to illness and sporadic club appearances, Fletcher has not been the mainstay with the Scotland national team that many would have liked him to be in recent years. "He is a good trainer, but he likes playing. Therefore I don't think he is a lad who wants to be sitting on the bench. But it is a hugely difficult thing to leave a club like Manchester United. I think we've just got to trust him to make the call when he's ready. Other players have done it and gone on to do brilliantly. (Phil) Neville, for instance. The boys at Sunderland, (Wes) Brown and (John) O'Shea. They have made good careers at other clubs. At some point he might have to bite the bullet and go and do that. Then he will be a great player at another club."

While Fletcher considers his options, McGhee expressed his surprise that Ikechi Anya, the nippy, nifty Watford winger, has not attracted the attentions of clubs in the upper echelons. Since being drafted into the Scotland international scene in September 2013, Anya's all-action performances have had eager observers cooing like doves on an electric fence. "I am always surprised about him because he doesn't even play every week," added McGhee. " I can never understand that. I know Gordon (Strachan) is the same. We scratch our heads. The boy is brilliant when he's with us in every sense. His training, his attitude. I am always first up in the morning and I'm in the breakfast room first. The next guy to come through the door is Jim Stewart (goalkeeping coach) and the next guy after that is Ikechi. He always has that smile on his face. He is happy with life and he is brilliant around the place. I am sure he is the same at Watford. He is a really positive influence on everybody. Why they're not banging the door down to take him I don't know. It wouldn't surprise me at all if somebody who was more astute said: 'We'll have a wee go with him'. Clubs are all looking for that player who can go by somebody."

Despite Scotland's friendly defeat to England last November, which took some of the wind out of the sails following the vital European Championship qualifying win over the Republic of Ireland four days earlier, there remains a feel good factor flowing through the national camp. It's a slightly more upbeat feeling than the first few days of the new regime, which began with morale-sapping defeats in the World Cup qualifying stages to Wales and Serbia. "I remember when we came back from Serbia, Gordon and I were the only two left at Mar Hall and we were sitting across from each other at breakfast staring at each other and wondering 'what have we done?'," reflected McGhee. "Maybe we even thought 'should we keep doing it?'

"But from that point we decided that we had to change something and we decided that we would do it his way and not what players might think or expect.

"We were fairly down at that moment because we had come in thinking if we could win the two games against Wales and Serbia then we could be back in the hunt for qualification. But we lost the two games so we were gutted. We have said many times since than that we take some of the responsibility for not qualifying for the World Cup. What has changed is that we have developed and retained a positive attitude. But you can get lucky and results have a lot to do with it."

In this results driven business, Scotland are heading in the right direction. What direction Fletcher chooses on the career path, meanwhile, remains to be seen.