If Curtis Main doesn’t keep his place in the Aberdeen starting line-up for this weekend’s encounter with Celtic then Derek McInnes may have to fortify his office door with a portcullis.
"I fully expect to retain my place for Sunday and I don't see myself coming in, putting in a performance and coming out the side,” said Main with considerable purpose. “Let's just say I know where the manager's office is.”
Main’s galvanised motivation is justified, of course. The 27-year-old put in an all action performance of poise, power and potency at Hamilton on Tuesday night and opened the scoring in a 3-1 win. Main’s goal after 15 minutes was Aberdeen’s first in five games and ended a withering drought that had just about prompted a hose pipe ban at Pittodrie.
Having been charged with leading the line in favour of 21-goal Sam Cosgrove, Main responded to the task with great vigour. Now that he’s in the team, the Englishman is determined to stay put.
“In my head my thought is that I'm looking forward to the next game,” said Main, who has had to play the waiting game to get a starting berth having joined Aberdeen from Motherwell in the summer.
"I signed here because I believed I could come and make an impact and be a big player for the club and I still expect to do that.
"As a centre forward you just want to get into a rhythm and play games consecutively to establish yourself in the team.
"I wanted to do it a lot quicker but these things happen in football. The manager knows that I'm here to play. I'm here to work hard and do well for the club and I'm obviously banging on the door and asking for opportunities when I'm not getting them.
"It's always nice to come in when you've been out the side and remind people exactly why you were here in the first place. If the team's playing well and winning games and the centre forwards are scoring then that's the time you hold your hands up and say 'fair dos, no problem'.
"But when things aren't going so well you hope to get your chance and make an impression and show why you deserve to be in the starting line-up.”
There had been talk – possibly paper talk – that Main would be moved on in the transfer window. That was never an option for Main, though, who continued to put in the hard yards in effort to muscle his way into the reckoning.
He added: “There might have been one or two enquiries from teams looking and thinking 'he isn't playing, can we get him?' But from my point of view I had no intention of leaving. I've only just got here.
“When I came in I hoped to go straight into the team and show the Aberdeen fans what they'd signed. Unfortunately I've not been able to get into the team as frequently as I'd have liked for various reasons.
"I've had to be patient and knuckle down and work hard behind the scenes - some of the stuff that maybe goes unnoticed - to be ready for opportunities like Tuesday night.”
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