redmatchday interview

MARK REYNOLDS

“These are the times that try men’s souls”. So wrote one of the Founding Fathers, Thomas Paine, in December 1776 in “The American Crisis”. But what did he know – he wasn’t even a football supporter…

Here in the Granite City, these truly are days that put us to the test, test our faith, our belief in the one true way, the red way. After an autumn that promised so much, the fall has been heavy and painful. In this of all seasons, when each club in the SPL, bar perhaps Dundee, fancied their chances of having a season to remember following Rangers’ expulsion, we come to the last for pre-split games staring at the very real possibility that the Dons might not even make the top six when, certainly until the winter break, second place was still very much on the agenda. There is time yet to pull things around, to rectify the situation and finish the season on a high, but just now, especially as we lick our wounds after the Ross game, it’s hard to be positive.

Nonetheless, the players need to find that spirit of optimism and as fans, we need to do all we can to help them. Now is not the time for recrimination or being downbeat, but the moment for all good men and women to rally to the cause and help drag us over the finish line and into the top six. For don’t believe for a second that the players aren’t hurting too – ten minutes with Mark Reynolds would soon put you right on that score.

“Everyone is taking it hard. The Ross County defeat was a major blow. The way the league has panned out this season, even when we have had a bad run of games, we have always kept ourselves in contact with the pack and even now we are not that far away. It is getting to the stage where it is so frustrating because every week it feels like we are saying if we get a win we would be back in amongst it but we keep letting everyone down.

“There are a number of things that are not going right but that is down to the players on the pitch. The preparation is fine, everything else at the club is fine. I know a lot has been made about the pitch we have been playing on, but it is the same for both teams. We have generally been playing well in games but not scoring when we have been on top and teams are making us pay for that.

“I think this season has given a massive opportunity for someone new to finish second. Who knows what will happen in the seasons to come. When you have a look at Rangers in the cup competitions, they are not the same side that dominated the SPL along with Celtic for all those years. What has happened will have an effect on them for the immediate future and therefore as and when they come back into the SPL, for the first couple of years they might not be as competitive as in the past.

“I certainly think the next couple of seasons will give a chance for someone to get a stranglehold in the league and establish themselves as a second force and be the team everyone wants to beat. I think we have maybe suffered from the fact we were pinpointed as being the second strongest squad in the league and when you look at the players we have, I believe we are. That has meant a lot of teams have come up to Pittodrie looking for a draw, they sit in and they just try and hit us on the break.

“You look at many of the games at Pittodrie, especially the 0-0 draws, we have had five or six chances we have not taken, we have conceded soft goals or a team has broken up the park and scored a goal against the run of play. I don’t want to make excuses as I fully understand much of the blame lies at the feet of the players in terms of not scoring goals and not stopping goals, but a lot of the refereeing decisions at critical times of the season have gone against us and have cost us big time. That is not an excuse. That is a fact.

“We have also never really managed to get real momentum going at any stage in the season like Motherwell have, like St Johnstone have, like Inverness have. Despite that we are still not that far behind these teams.

“I think the thing that is most frustrating is that no one is able to put their finger on exactly what has gone wrong. I know a lot of people on the outside looking in will blame the management and/or the players but from being in the changing room, I can tell you that everyone is 100% behind the manager, as is everyone at the club. It is not the manager that is costing us these games. The way the games have been panning out, we have been the masters of our own downfall. We are not making the most of when we are on top and we are conceding poor goals. The manager is putting out a good team. He has made changes when the team has need freshening up, but we haven’t done the job.

“If there were problems within the club, cracks would start to appear very quickly in the spirit that binds everyone together. But that is still there. Everyone is still 100% behind the manager and everyone is still very much together and wanting to push on.

“That said, the negativity around things does weigh you down. It is a Scottish trait. We always look for the negative in everything. We would rather criticise than compliment people. Scottish football as a product is no different, everyone just looks at the negative. For example everyone talks about how bad the pitches are, if a goal is conceded it is down to bad defending or poor goalkeeping, never that someone has scored a good goal or it is a good piece of play. There are two sides to everything and in Scotland we concern ourselves with promoting the negative.

“You look at England for example. The Premier League is regarded as being the best league in the world yet you go to the European Championships, you go the World Cups and Germany are always there or thereabouts. They are always making quarter-finals, semi-finals or the final because the Bundesliga is one of the best leagues in the world. So is La Liga but the media laud the English league as being the best. It is certainly up there, it is certainly the richest league in the world, it is maybe the most glamorous, it is certainly the most televised. In terms of actual football it is on a par with German and Spain but it is just because they are so good at talking their game up it is perceived as being the best”.

Much of that came from the revolution that followed in the wake of the construction of the Premier League back in 1992, the competition becoming an all consuming juggernaut that brooks no criticism and mows down everything in its wake. For all the good intentions, it’s hard to see Scottish reconstruction having quite the same impact but we need try something…

“It is lost on a lot of players but that does not mean the plan won’t work. A lot of the problems in Scottish football, or in any walk of life, you sit down and talk about how things are going to work and what all the benefits are. Then, when you put things into practice and things maybe don’t work out that well or there is an unforeseen problem, nobody is willing to change things because so much time and effort went into it and nobody is willing to admit they made a mistake, and that is my biggest worry.

“In theory it looks great – the top eight are going to fight it out for European places, the middle eight are going to fight in out to see who stays in the league and the bottom eight are doing to fight it out to see who gets a chance at promotion the next season. In theory everyone will have something to play for, but that was what they said about the top six split.

“What people did not foresee was that some teams who finished five or sixth had no chance of getting to fourth as they were so far adrift. This then affected the teams who were trying to qualify for Europe or win the league because some teams had nothing to play for, meaning you had an easier game.

“I also finished one season in the bottom six with Motherwell but we could not go down. We were seventh and I think we could only drop to eighth. Whilst as a professional you always want to win games, there was no motivation.

“This season the decision on who gets the European spots could go down to the final week of the season but for the teams in the bottom six they will be out of it. You could have had a lot more teams competing for Europe if there was no split. If you look at England, the play-offs work so well because there is always one team that comes with a late surge from nowhere to force their way in. That happened one year when I was at Sheffield Wednesday.

“Football is a funny game. With the best will in the world, things happen and you just have to be able to adapt. I think the hope is they make the changes but if there is an error or an oversight they correct it. And it could be the shot in the arm that Scottish football needs. It is good they are trying to change it and mix it up and are looking to keeping in exciting and give every team the chance to play for something. If it works great but if it doesn’t, I hope they can change it and don’t just say, “It has been years in the planning so get on with it””.

Mark will certainly have plenty of opportunity to test out the new structure given he has signed a new deal that will keep him at Pittodrie until 2017, some commitment from both sides of the agreement, and especially important for Mark give that he has just become a father.

“I am now beginning to get into a bit of a rhythm. It changes your life. Before I had my son, you speak to people and they come out with all the clich?s about that, but it really does! The people who are reading this and are dads will know what I am talking about. The people who aren’t will only fully realise when they actually have kids!

“A number of the boys in the dressing room have become dads recently and you can tell they want to get home to get some sleep after training! We are fortunate in some ways because we have the luxury of being able to do that, but at the same time I can’t go into an office and hope I am going to have a quiet day! My job is physically demanding and then I have 10,000 people shouting at me telling me I am having an absolute stinker! So the lack of sleep is a concern but it is great though. I feel really settled in Aberdeen with the family and hopefully I will be here for the considerable future and hopefully we are going to enjoy some successful years.

“Everything is in place that needs to be for this club to be successful. The results have not been going for us but it is just a bit of tinkering that needs doing. It does not need a massive overhaul or massive changes, and so it comes back to the players. Aberdeen is a club where you are going to be playing under pressure. Personally I enjoy that pressure but if you don’t, then it is not the type of club you want to be at because there are big expectations and you have to live up to them. I think up until now we have not done that. We need to change that urgently.

“There is extra pressure because Aberdeen is a one city club. Most of the other main cities in Scotland have got at least two clubs. Aberdeen is isolated and in the city and the surrounding area, the majority of fans support Aberdeen. A lot of people have a link to the club and want to see us doing well. When Aberdeen is doing well, you can almost feel the city has been lifted. That in itself is a massive pressure but as a footballer, you have to learn to deal with that and thrive off it. You have to use it to your benefit. We are getting good attendances and we are better supported than many of the teams in the league so we need to repay the fans with performances.

“There is no point saying we have to do this or have to do that. We have to shut up and start getting some points on the board. I still think we have a shout at the top six. We are a few points off it now but everyone is taking points off each other and a number of the teams beside us have to play each other so they can’t all pick up maximum points. All we can do is win our games. We know that if we do not win our games, we will not make the top six, simple as that.