CRAIG Bryson was no slouch as a goalscoring midfielder. Just look at his stats fromthe 2013-14 campaign.
Sixteen
goals in 49 games. Derby's player of the year award. A place in the PFA
Championship team of the season.
So
does the 32-year-old Scot ever impart his wisdom to Mason Mount, the talented
young Chelsea loanee tipped to be England's next midfield great?
“Normally
I would,” laughs Bryson. “But when your gaffer is Frank Lampard… well, you kind
of leave the tips to him, don't you?”
With
274 career goals, 106 England caps and every major club honour against his
name, you probably do.
“As
a young player, I grew up watching the gaffer and Steven Gerrard,” adds Bryson,
who started his career at Clyde and Kilmarnock before joining the Rams in 2011.
“The
way they played that position was unbelievable and, even now, having him as my
manager is a bit surreal. He's someone you're used to watching on TV, not
seeing in the flesh.
“To
be honest, it doesn't matter if you're in your 30s like me and Tom Huddlestone
or 19 like Mason. If you can't learn from Frank Lampard, you're doing something
wrong. We're all very lucky to get this experience.”
Feware luckier than Bryson, for whom the arrival of Lampard this summer was bothdream and salvation.
Ostracised
and loaned to Cardiff by Gary Rowett at the start of last season, it appeared
Bryson's six-year stay at Pride Park was drawing to a close.
Yet
what began as a reluctant posting ended in joyous triumph as Neil Warnock's
Bluebirds won a fairytale promotion to the Premier League.
“I didn't want to leave Derby,” admits Bryson. “But the old manager had made itvery clear that my first team games would be limited.
“What
can you do? I could only try to turn a negative into a positive and obviously
it went better than I could ever have expected.
“I
enjoyed every second of it and Neil Warnock is one of the best managers I've
ever worked under. The way he treats people, his man-management of the whole
squad. If you respect him and put a shift in, he'll bend over backwards to look
after you.
“People
talk about his style of football but there's no right or wrong way to play. Neil
knows what his players are good at and what they aren't, and he plays to their
strengths. You just have to look at his record to see it works.
“We
knew we weren't the most talented team in the league. Everybody kept talking
about how good Fulham were and how they'd hunt us down. But every single player
bought into what Neil wanted. When you've got that ethos, you'll always have a
chance.”
Briefly,
Bryson looked set to join Cardiff in the top flight. Reports in early July
claimed Derby had accepted a £1.75m offer from the Bluebirds.
But
the midfielder always hankered after a return to Pride Park and even attended
last season's East Midlands derby against Nottingham Forest as a supporter.
Fortunately, Lampard shared those sentiments.
“I
don't know how close it came,” says Bryson. “But I must admit, I was never 100
per cent keen to leave Derby, even for the Premier League.
“And
fair play to the manager. On his first day in the job he called me personally
and said he wanted me to stay. It was pretty surreal seeing his name appear on
my phone, let me tell you!
“Oncehe'd spoken to me, I was never going to push for a move. I've always loved ithere and I'd never imagined myself playing for any other club in England.”
Bryson
freely admits that part of him wished last year's promotion had come in a Derby
shirt after enduring a succession of late collapses and near misses in recent
years.
Scarred
Rams fans live in perpetual fear of the traditional February capitulation. But
with Derby sitting fourth ahead of the weekend's fixtures, Bryson insists this
season can be different.
“Whenever
we lose a game in January or February, that always gets mentioned,” he says
with an exasperated sigh. “Everybody's kind of going ‘Is this when the collapse
will start?'.
“But
we've got so many new players this season, it's a completely different group.
With the new manager, all the young players – I can't see it being a factor.
“And
what we've done really well this season is every time we've had a bad run,
we've bounced back from it really quickly. That has to be a good sign.”
Much
of that optimism revolves around the emergence of Mount and fellow starlet
Harry Wilson, 21, who has scored a string of spectacular strikes on loan from
Liverpool.
Alongsidein-form striker Jack Marriott and winger Tom Lawrence, Derby have one of thedivision's most vibrant attacking units.
“I'd
never really heard of Mason before he came,” admits Bryson. “He'd been out on
loan in Holland, but I didn't know how he'd done.
“You
could see from the first couple of training sessions that he had tremendous
ability. He just needs to express that in games and in Derby I think he's got a
great platform. He's playing every game. He's got a manager who believes in
him. Supporters who recognise he's young and will make mistakes. It's the same
with Harry.
“Assenior pros, our job is to guide them along. It's not so long ago that me andTom were in their shoes. We had to lean on experienced players and it now fallson our shoulders to do the same.”
CHRIS DUNLAVY
