Mark McGhee’s Scottish Cup record makes for impressive reading. He won all five of his finals during the 1980s, three for Aberdeen and two for Celtic, scoring in two and defeating Rangers in three of them.
On Saturday, the urbane 59-year-old takes his Motherwell team to Ibrox for the tie of the tournament’s fourth round. A former architecture student, he always found an interesting perspective as a striker at the stadium in his playing days. “The stand is the same shape as the goal and I always used to think that the goal looked small at Ibrox because of the scale of the stand [behind it],” he explains. “I always felt it was a hard place to score.”
Motherwell haven’t won the Scottish Cup since overcoming Dundee United 4-3 after extra-time to win the best modern final in 1991. This year’s draw could have been kinder to them, but McGhee says it could also have been worse. “I don’t think I’ll be offending anyone to say that going to Celtic Park at this point is a bit more difficult than going to Ibrox.” He plans three presentations on Rangers this week, so his players “go there as prepared as we can possibly be. If we combine that with playing well, we have a chance. Anything less and we’ll probably get beat.”
He has the strikers to spring a shock in Louis Moult, scorer of 11 goals this season, and Scott McDonald. The veteran Australian put Motherwell ahead in the league at Ibrox last August, then tried to be too cute with a clearance in the closing moments before Kenny Miller scored Rangers’ stoppage-time winner. Such soft goals partly explain why Motherwell have mislaid the momentum his second coming at the club generated last season, says McGhee, although losing the swift Marvin Johnson to Oxford United and the influential Carl McHugh to a horrendous head injury haven’t helped either in a staccato season thus far.
He leads the way through the narrow corridors of Fir Park to his office, warning to watch out for the fresh paint on the walls. He provided his own makeover when he returned as the club’s manager last October. After replacing the unlamented Ian Baraclough, he guided them from ninth to fifth by May. A 2-1 win at Celtic Park in December, with Moult scoring twice, was the highlight.
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Motherwell were therefore widely tipped as top-six material at the start of the season. With a game to spare on those around them in the congested middle of the Premiership, that remains a realistic aim from the remainder of the league campaign. McGhee says they will benefit from the winter break and be stronger in the second half of the season, as it has allowed veterans such as Keith Lasley, McDonald and Stephen McManus to recover from injuries.
With the League Cup already under lock and key at Celtic Park and the League title heading there, the Scottish Cup is the remaining trophy for Rangers to have a realistic tilt at this season, which brings some pressure from their perspective. “Rangers, even at this stage, would expect to be in cup finals, would expect to be, at worst, losing in a final and then probably only to Celtic.
“I think they are entitled — look at their crowds, their infrastructure even now — to think of themselves already as the second team in Scotland. They will expect to be in cup finals and they will be conscious of Celtic’s potential for a treble and desperate to stop them, but I can only reassure them that, if we beat Rangers, then we’ll do our best to stop them, too.”
The argument that Rangers and Mark Warburton, their manager, should already be closer to Celtic is “totally unrealistic”, however. “Not only in terms of resources and the gap that still exists, but time as well. They are only just back and he’s only just here. Celtic still have a huge advantage over them. Rangers will close the gap incrementally, but it will not be done overnight. As they progress, they will get better players and eventually they will have a better team, but, at this stage, they should still expect to be where they are. They should be the second team, getting to cup finals and back in Europe. They are a few years behind Celtic.”
McGhee could have been Celtic’s manager in 2009 after his successful first spell at Motherwell included a third-place finish and European football for the first time in 13 years. It was between him and Tony Mowbray to succeed Gordon Strachan, his friend and advocate for the role. “Somebody told me on the Thursday or Friday that they had closed the book on me. All these things encouraged me to think, ‘I’ve got a chance here’ and then it was Saturday morning when I got the message to say they had given it to someone else, which was fine.”
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So instead he went back to Aberdeen, scene of so many successes as a player, but it didn’t work out for either him or his old club, the nadir being a 9-0 defeat at Celtic Park in November 2010. He was sacked within a month of it. “I don’t regret going to Aberdeen, but I regret maybe the way I went about it to a degree and I was disappointed in what I found there. I had a responsibility and was complicit in my own experience at Aberdeen, but I don’t regret leaving Motherwell. The time was right. The club got to a point where they couldn’t afford me because I was earning too much and they needed to cut the wages and reduce costs. An easy way for them to do that was for me to leave.”
He has come back to a smaller budget still, but is proud of sticking to it. “We’ve managed to get the finances under control. Although our budget is low, for the first time in 12 to 15 years we don’t have to ask anybody for any money to make sure we can pay all the bills and wages at the end of the season. We have a little bit of surplus. That’s a major achievement of Alan Burrows [the chief operating officer] and I like to think I’ve played a part as well.”
That means that any money gathered on a Scottish Cup run would go straight back into improving his squad, but McGhee is dreaming of more than some extra dosh at his disposal. “Imagine going to a final with Motherwell, that would be just fantastic,” he says, beaming behind his desk.
ON TV SATURDAY
Rangers v Motherwell
Sky Sports 2, midday