In the not-so-distant past, English clubs viewed Scottish football with the kind of blatant disregard that Russell Brand reserves for grand-daughters. As a Scotsman in exile south of the border, Mark McGhee witnessed the withering disdain first-hand. Over recent years, though, he has detected a change in outlook, with English clubs now looking to the Scottish market as a rich source of plunder.
The most high-profile examples have been James McFadden, Craig Gordon, Alan Hutton and Stephen Pearson, who all switched from the Scottish top flight to the Barclays Premier League over the last five years. There are also a sprinkling of Scots in the Coca-Cola Championship. Kevin McDonald, the former Dundee midfielder, is making an impact at Burnley and Ross McCormack is a regular scorer at Cardiff City, following his move from Motherwell in the summer.
"People are starting to think that there are one or two players up here," reflected McGhee, the Motherwell manager. "There was a time when people didn't take the league seriously enough to consider coming here for players. They looked at the under-performing national team, they saw that Rangers and Celtic were full of foreigners and therefore didn't take it seriously enough, but I think it has changed."
McGhee's Motherwell face a Hearts side tonight that contains a few players who are attracting the attention of English clubs. Christophe Berra, the impressive Hearts captain, has been linked with Fulham, Stoke and Bolton, while others such as Andy Driver could move on if an appropriate offer is made.
"They are good players," said McGhee of Berra and Driver. "They are among some of the players in Scotland who could realistically play at a good level in England. I'm not surprised that people are interested in Chris Porter too, but I am also worried about losing David Clarkson. There are maybe even a few more players in Scotland that people aren't looking at close enough."
McGhee will hope to survive this month's transfer window with his squad intact. The most likely departure is Porter to Nottingham Forest, though McGhee admitted that the dismissal of Colin Calderwood last month could scupper any possible move. "There is no pressure on me in the sense that if we don't sell Chris Porter now, he will go in the summer for nothing. We brought him here for nothing and he might go for nothing, but we will have had two good years out of him.
"If an offer came in that was really attractive then the board would ask me to consider it, but they wouldn't force it upon me. The deciding factor would be Chris. Last year Ross McCormack said, I don't need to go now, I will go in the summer' and we were happy with that. Mark Reynolds could have gone this summer but was happy to stay. We are giving the players their options and it will be the same with Chris."
McGhee confirmed he is keen to sign Don Cowie, the Inverness Caledonian Thistle midfielder, on a pre-contract agreement. Motherwell have also successfully extended Maros Klimpl's loan spell till the end of the season. The Slovakian international is a natural defender, but has been moved into midfield to good effect in recent weeks following the return of Stephen Craigan.
"He came here as a centre-half and he sees himself as such," said McGhee of Klimpl. "Scott Leitch the Motherwell assistant manager kept bleating on about playing Maros in midfield. We could see that he was a good footballer, with a good temperament and gets close to people. I wasn't sure if he would go into midfield and run all over the place because he is someone who hunts the ball, but once we got Craigan fit we thought we would give it a go and Maros has done really well."
Motherwell have steadied the ship over the past couple of weeks following an alarming slump that saw them slip to joint bottom of the league. A win against Inverness Caledonian Thistle and a draw with St Mirren last weekend have coincided with their injury problems starting to clear.
McGhee highlights Craigan's return from injury as pivotal to their resurgence.
"There are some players that you don't realise how important they are to you until they're missing. Craigan is one of those guys. Since I got here, he has heard me talk about needing a centre-half, somebody who can command and win the first header. But he has just focused and not let that disturb him in any way. He is really important to us.
"It's not a coincidence that results have improved. The other players spent the previous games not only struggling to score a goal but looking back and wondering if we were going to lose a goal. We've now got our back four in place and Craigan has done brilliantly. Reynolds has also been buoyed by the fact that Craigan is back, just as Porter has been buoyed by the return of Clarkson."
Eleven points separate Motherwell in ninth from Hearts in fourth and McGhee admits that his team must win if they are to retain hopes of a top-four finish. "If we want to catch Hearts we need to beat them," he added.
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