HE may have been reserved in his opinion, but Mark Reynolds knows only too well the quandary facing his younger comrade.
The decision by Ryan Fraser, Aberdeen's brightest young talent, to refuse to sign a new deal with the club will have struck a chord with the former Motherwell midfielder, who knows only too well that the grass isn't always greener on the southern side.
Reynolds, who surrendered a starting place at the heart of the Fir Park defence for a spot on the Sheffield Wednesday bench in January last year, has since migrated north to seek solace at Pittodrie on loan after his own dream of making it big failed to take flight.
"It's none of our business, to be honest. It's his own decision," said the 25-year-old, who was helpless in preventing Aberdeen falling to a 2-0 defeat away at Hearts in the Clydesdale Bank Premier League. "In four years' time he's either going to have made it big or he'll have done nothing. Time will tell.
"The main thing is, as long as you think it's the right thing at the time then you can live with it. It's his decision, his career."
Fraser, who is currently sidelined with a hip injury, was conspicuous by his absence at Tynecastle as a blunt Aberdeen attack failed to penetrate a stubborn Hearts backline.
The trio of Scott Vernon, Niall McGinn and Johnny Hayes failed to capitalise on a strong start to the match, and also struggled to show the character or want as their hosts took the lead through a Ryan Stevenson penalty on the half hour, before extending their lead with a Callum Paterson strike on 53 minutes.
"They got a penalty which was silly to give away. It changes the game," said Reynolds, who will return to his former ground tomorrow when Aberdeen face Motherwell in a William Hill Scottish Cup replay.
"We have a lot of players out injured and those coming in are taking a bit of time to gel. We just need to get on and play the hand we've got."
The victory pushed Hearts up to seventh in the table, just three points behind fifth-placed Aberdeen, with Stevenson marking his second spell at the club with his first goal of the campaign. The 28-year-old, who has also returned to Scotland after failing to make the grade at Ipswich Town, seems to have settled at the club he grudgingly left little under a year ago.
"The full performance was positive," said the forward, who was forced off at the break with a head knock. "As players we need to step up and do our bit."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article