CALLUM DAVIDSON can remember being left spellbound as Tartan Army pin-up James McFadden turned on the style for Scotland, and is hoping that his former team-mate can do the same thing for St Johnstone.
Davidson, the assistant manager at McDiarmid Park, also insists it would be foolish to rule out a return to the national fold for the one-time talisman. McFadden has signed a deal through to the summer and goes straight into the squad to face St Mirren. Davidson is adamant that McFadden can use Perth as a stepping stone back into Gordon Strachan's squad.
The pair last played together in a World Cup qualifier at Hampden against Macedonia, with Scott Brown and McFadden scoring in a 2-0 win for manager George Burley. "My friend's a photographer and he sent me a photo," Davidson recalled.
"James was sitting beside me in the line-up at the start of the game. We have had a laugh looking back but that was my last cap and as usual for me I had trouble with my hamstring. It tore and I was off after about 15 minutes.
"Faddy reminded me that he scored in that one but I was probably in that bad a mood I still have no idea what the final score was. He was a talisman for Scotland and everyone remembers his goal against France in Paris. James was the main man and he carried the national team for a few years. He also played for Motherwell the day I made my final appearance, on the last day of the season in 2013.
"I didn't know it was my last one at the time because I only decided over the summer when Tommy asked me to be his assistant. So that's twice James has seen me off!
"But seriously, he has had quality in abundance throughout his career. He's one of those players who can go by defenders with a dip of the shoulder. James goes past defenders as if they weren't there, creating a bit of space for himself or others. He has special ability and hopefully he can show that here."
St Johnstone have suffered lately from the absence of injured striker Steven MacLean, but Davidson said they have no concerns but the fitness of McFadden. "He has been looking after himself," he said. "James knows himself that the older you get the more you have to do that. We plan to play him through the middle or behind the striker. So I believe James will score goals for us. He's a totally different player from Macca and we will have to be prepared to adapt as a team. Macca is a leader and he gets people fired up on the pitch.
"Faddy relies more on guile. The condition he's in coming in here is a credit to James. If he wasn't too fussed about the rest of his career he wouldn't have worked so hard to make sure he was ready when he got a new club sorted out. He does all the work and the cool downs."
Jim Goodwin has started taking charge of the cool downs, as part of the management team at St Mirren, but the Irishman remains happy to keep taking stick from his team-mates. "There is a lot more thinking to be done in planning training sessions and everything is running along nicely but the boys have made it easy," he said, before turning his attention to the opposition.
"St Johnstone are on a poor run in the league so both of us are fighting for our lives at the moment."
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