Ryan Christie grudgingly accepted there was no choice but to bring his campaign to a grinding halt, both prematurely and painfully.
The Scotland winger was forced to bow to the inevitable and undergo the groin surgery he had hoped to postpone till the summer.
After earning rave reviews as a mainstay in Andoni Iraola’s high-flying Bournemouth side, what should have been the Premier League season of his dreams instead came to a frustrating end.
He will certainly remember it as the most agonising and stressful spell of his career.
Given his obvious importance to a Cherries side who have continued to punch above their weight in the self-styled greatest league in the world, Mail Sport has a question for the boyish-looking 30-year-old.
Would he consider prolonging his club career by following the lead of his pal and former Celtic team-mate Callum McGregor and retiring from international football? The answer is emphatic.
Ryan Christie insists that serving Scotland provides him with his biggest thrill in football
The Bournemouth midfielder had been a revelation until injury curtailed his season
Christie with Callum McGregor in Scotland training, but he won’t quit like his ex-Celtic pal
‘No,’ says Christie. ‘I mean, Cal’s obviously done that for his own personal reasons. I can totally understand, with the amount of games he’s played in his career — I think he hits between 60 and 70 games every season for Celtic — why he’s come to that decision.
‘Personally my biggest thing in football is playing for Scotland, my family have always had that mindset and friends know that about me. As long as I’m still kicking a ball, I’ll be available to be picked. I’m sure there will come a day when I’m told I’m not good enough, but I’d like to leave that in somebody else’s hands rather than my own, I think.’
Christie will almost certainly miss Scotland’s friendlies against Iceland and Liechtenstein in June as he concentrates on being ready for next season.
I check with him how many caps he has to date.
‘I want to say 57 or 58. It’s terrible that I don’t know for sure.’
I tell him it’s 59 and wonder if there’s a chance of him getting to the 100 mark if he can play for the next five or six years.
‘Wow, that’s a question. I think I’d be doing well to hit a hundred. That would certainly be something that I didn’t ever expect to happen. Fifty was a massive milestone for me. When I was in the forties I was counting them down, every single one. I was desperate to get to 50.
‘Obviously it’s frustrating to miss the two games in the summer that I don’t think I’m going to be ready for, but the big thing that helps with your caps is managing to make it to the major tournaments and playing a few games there as well.
‘We’ve got a squad of players now who are racking up the caps. Myself, Andy (Robertson), Craig Gordon, John McGinn, boys like that who’re on a massive number now. Those guys are now into the top five, top ten of all-time so it’s a huge achievement for them and they’re nowhere near finished.’
Christie reckons Steve Clarke is nowhere near finished either as Scotland manager, and still has the full backing of the players, despite the criticism he’s faced on the back of crashing 3-0 to Greece at Hampden last month and suffering relegation from the top tier of the Nations League.
‘Hundred per cent,’ nods Christie. ‘I think if you ask any of the boys they would put the success we’ve had in recent years down to him. He’s been unbelievable, not just for me, personally, but for the whole squad. He’s raised the level, raised our belief in what we can do as a team and it’s paid off.
‘Qualifying for back-to-back Euros was a big deal and you can see the connection there is between the squad and the nation which has been pretty special to be a part of. All the boys love playing for him and, fingers crossed, he can take us to a World Cup.’
Christie in action against Portugal’s Bruno Fernandes during a Nations League encounter
Highlander Christie plans to rejoin the Scotland squad when the qualifiers kick off in September. Right now, his sole focus is on the next few months of recovery and rehab. Last week he underwent a three-hour operation that he hopes will allow him to play pain-free.
‘Apparently I was FaceTiming everybody when I came out of surgery but I can’t remember anything about it so I must have been in a good place.
‘I had double-hernia surgery plus a groin tidy-up in my abductor. It was probably best to get everything done in the one hit so it gets me back quicker.
‘I first started getting some serious pain in pre season. I managed to get it under control through October, November, December with injection therapy and stuff like that. ‘But, from January onwards. it’s been tough. Not really training much and then taking painkillers to play games. Even with that, my groin would be giving up on me after an hour and I’d have to come off and sit down.
‘It just limits your game. I’ve not been able to sprint for about six months. I’ve spoken to other players who’ve had the same sort of thing. Kieran Tierney had the same problem in his younger days at Celtic. Specialists have told me it’s a complicated part of the body. One thing wrong can trigger other problems. It’s frustrating, especially when you’re not on the painkillers, knowing that you can’t play to your maximum.
‘There are some days that you feel alright in training but you have to stop or you’ll pay for it the next day. It’s been hard, mentally, to wrap my head around it and it’s been difficult for most of the season.
Christie, up against Man City’s Kovacic, has been one the Premier League’s top midfielders
‘Huge credit to the medical staff I’ve got around me at Bournemouth. They’ve thrown the kitchen sink at me to get me into a playing position. Without them, there’s no way I would have played the amount of games I’ve managed.’
That groin nightmare aside, the former Inverness, Celtic and Aberdeen star has had an otherwise incredible season at Bournemouth. TV pundits have regularly lauded him as one of the most influential midfielders in England’s top tier. It’s a surprise, then, that he doesn’t regard this as his best-ever campaign..
‘I know what you mean. I’ve loved this season. I’ve played a lot of minutes and a lot of games and we’ve done really well, which has been brilliant.
‘But it’s strange to think that, at the end of my career, I’ll probably look back on this season as being my most stressful and my most frustrating because of the 24/7 pain I’ve had to put up with between games which, obviously, has been out of the public eye. Again, I don’t want to be moaning because I’ve enjoyed this season so much but it has been frustrating in terms of managing the pain.
‘I’m just looking forward to playing football without that pain. That’s the most exciting thing for me. Hopefully I’ll be in a brilliant place come the start of the season and that, in turn, puts me in a good place for when the World Cup qualifiers roll round. I’ve always said I’m very proud of how many Scotland caps I’ve got. I didn’t think in a million years when I was younger I would make this many so I’m desperate to keep adding to that total.’
Could future Scotland appearances see him play in that deeper role he occupies so effectively for Bournemouth? What is Iraola seeing that Clarke doesn’t? The look on Christie’s face tells me it’s a question he’s been asked too many times.
Christie celebrates another Bournemouth success with his glamorous fiancee Georgie Bell
Christie and Bell are set to tie the knot this summer, but will Ryan be fit for the first dance?
‘When I first played for Scotland under this manager, I was a winger and I don’t think I’ve ever come out of that position, so I don’t think I’d ever expect to play anywhere else for the national team. I love playing for Scotland whatever I’m asked to do. As a country, we seem to have a history of producing unbelievable central midfielders so I think there’s plenty of cover in that part of the pitch without me getting involved.’
Christie gets married to fiancee Georgie Bell in June. Maybe he would have missed those two friendlies anyway?
‘No, I’d planned that well in advance,’ he says. ‘I would have managed to make the Scotland games and then have the wedding afterwards.
‘If the surgery had been in the summer, the main problem would have been completing the first dance with my new wife but hopefully now I’ll be okay to do that!’
Their boy Leo will have his second birthday three days before the wedding. And it’s the little lad who brings our interview to an end as he rushes into the room.
‘He seems to have an understanding about my situation,’ smiles Christie. ‘He’s constantly running up to me, pointing at my stomach and shouting: “Sore”, so I think he somehow realises that his old man’s been in a bit of pain.’
