STEVEN Naismith told Hearts centre half John Souttar he needs to work hard to get rid of his reputation of being error-prone if he wanted to fulfil his potential when he joined the Tynecastle club on loan last year, writes Matthew Lindsay.
But Naismith believes the Tynecastle centre half has successfully done that and is ready to establish himself as a first team regular with Scotland under new manager Steve Clarke.
The national team take on Cyprus in a Euro 2020 qualifier at Hampden tomorrow evening and supporters are intrigued to see how they line-up under Clarke,
Naismith, who is unavailable due to a knee injury, feels Souttar, who has won three caps for his country to date, should kick-off the game in defence.
READ MORE: Naismith eyeing Scotland Hall of Fame place
“I clicked with him straight away,” he said. “He wants to learn and he asks a lot of questions. I said: ‘Look, I’ll give you my opinion. Before I met you I thought you were a defender who makes strikers think, ‘oooft, I might get something off of him’.
“He would put himself in situations where he just gets a toe in. I said to him that perception would carry unless he got rid of it. But from training with John I learned that he actually doesn’t give much away.
“I will always be honest with my team mates. The funny thing is that I roomed with John with Scotland. But I knew he was someone who could take it. That he could go further. For me honesty has always been the best way. Giving somebody false dreams is only going to end in tears.
“He is somebody I knew to be a strong character, very mature beyond his age. You look at him now and he is an established Scotland player.
“You look at defenders like (Virgil) van Dijk and there’s never a moment when you think ‘the striker is going to nick it off him’. It doesn’t really happen. And John never gave up a lot of chances.
READ MORE: Jagielka won’t join Celtic, says Naismith
“But the perception of me being down south watching Scottish games was that John was risky. He took a lot of risks as a defender. I must say over the last year he has massively improved in that regard.
“He has improved massively. Not just on the ball but also as a defender first and foremost. I think that’s why he got his Scotland chance – because he did become more reliable.’
Asked if he though Scott McKenna and Souttar could form a reliable central defensive partnership for Scotland, Naismith said: “They could, yes. They’ve definitely played for the younger international age groups together.
But, again, Charlie Mulgrew brings a lot with his set plays and how comfortable he is on the ball. We’ve definitely got options now.”
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 here