Levein's £14m loss very much O'Neill's gain

Saturday 15 September 2012

At least one person was happy Steven Fletcher didn't have any work to do during the international break.

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Neil White

While Craig Levein and some of his senior Scotland players cursed the ghost of the striker who haunts their every missed opportunity, Martin O'Neill, the manager who paid £14m to bring Fletcher to Sunderland from Wolves this summer, knew his key forward would be closer to full speed than when he was asked to comment on the 25-year-old's two-goal debut at Swansea and responded: "He's nowhere near match-fit yet."

O'Neill lost a few of his starters to international duty, but not Fletcher. "From that point of view, [the break] was good and he will have benefited from that," he said. After his move, Fletcher gave an interview in which he echoed countless other O'Neill signings down the years. "After speaking to the gaffer, you walk away feeling like a million dollars," he said.O'Neill's man-management and ability to instil self-belief are almost without equal, but at the current rate of exchange, he did his new signing a considerable disservice here.Today, there is motivation from another source for Fletcher. One of the reasons a move to Sunderland appealed to him was the proximity to his mother, who lives in Durham with his step-father, a dedicated supporter of his new club. "He likes to think he has given me the big history lesson about Sunderland," said the striker.Fletcher's mother is a Rangers fan, but, after growing up on Army bases in England and Germany, he was a Liverpool supporter. He picked that team as his late father came from the city and as he developed as a footballer in Hamilton, and was ushered into the Hibernian academy by John Park, his heroes were not from Scotland, but England: first Robbie Fowler, then Michael Owen, the predators of Anfield.This summer, with Fowler a 37-year-old free agent after leaving club football in Thailand, he found himself at opposite ends of the market to Owen. While the former England striker, now 32, was picked up by Stoke City after his release from a bit-part existence at Manchester United, Fletcher's transfer was evidence of the grand ambition of Sunderland, trumping even their acquisition of the England winger Adam Johnson from Manchester City. Today, Fletcher faces the team he supported, not for the first time, but with a status far elevated from when he suffered several heavy defeats against them with Wolves or Burnley.Fletcher scored at Anfield in one of them and during the last few transfer windows his name was raised among the great list of players Liverpool were considering as part of the Moneyball recruitment project of Fenway Sports, their American owners.That school love a good statistic, from the start of last season to this match, Fletcher leads the Barclays Premier League in headed goals scored. And that from a player who has played for losing sides since he arrived in the division, and one who left Scotland a long way from being an accomplished finisher in the air. That talks to a continued improvement from a player who is far more than a target man. It backs up the claim made by O'Neill that even at the price he paid, Fletcher represents value.That asks the question as to why Kenny Dalglish, when he led a suicidal splurge on over-priced players Liverpool have since rushed to offload, did not look more closely at his countryman. And it adds yet more to the frustration at the petty stand-off between the Scotland coach and his finest forward.

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Levein's £14m loss very much O'Neill's gain

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