Call-offs won’t be raining down on me this time ... I expect every player I pick to turn up for duty
Scots boss doesn’t see a repeat of nine-man snub for crunch Euro clashes
ALEX McLEISH expects every player selected to kick off Scotland’s Euro 2020 campaign to turn up despite admitting it’s a crucial period in the club season.
The national manager was hit with an incredible nine call-offs from his last squad before the Nations League double-header against Albania and Israel.
And champions Celtic – who could have up to seven players in the squad – as well as skipper Andy Robertson are due to be in action early on the day Scotland take their overnight flight to Kazakhstan for their Group I opener.
Scotland then face San Marino in the second half of the qualifying double header and that fixture takes place just seven days before the third Old Firm showdown of the season at Parkhead.
McLeish – set to name his squad on Tuesday – played fair with club managers when picking his players for last summer’s much-maligned end-of-season trip to the Americas.
And he hopes there is an understanding of how important these games are to Scotland as they look to get off to a winning start.
McLeish said: “I’m not expecting Neil Lennon, Stevie Gerrard, Steve Clarke or Craig Levein to do me a favour. I’ll pick the squad and expect everyone to be there.
“Obviously, the Old Firm game is immediately after our match against San Marino but we’ll look after the players – we would do that anyway.
“I haven’t sat down with the clubs or appealed to them in newspapers to be good to the national manager or Scotland. “But at this time of the season
The Old Firm game is immediately after San Marino but we’ll look after the players ALEX McLEISH
we aren’t the only country to have this situation.
“We will pick the squad and cross the bridge when we come to it.
“Last year we went to South America and I made a lot of concessions. Every manager wants to look after his own bag but we expect to pick the players and see where it goes from there.
“When we had all the call-offs the last time people were getting paranoid about it and there were three players who might have started for us who called off.
“But they were all genuine call-offs and a lot of that was down to the advice from the performance guys saying, ‘He isn’t going to be able to play’.
“There’s no hiding place now because we have the performance analysts and, when players hit the red lines, that’s when we take them out. You used to say, ‘He looks all right so we’ll just play him’ but we don’t take risks nowadays.”
One man McLeish expects to be available for selection is Allan McGregor despite the Rangers goalkeeper copping a two-match retrospective ban for his challenge on Aberdeen’s Lewis Ferguson – another name discussed for a potential call-up – last month.
McLeish said: “That wouldn’t be an issue with Allan, he’s bigger than that. That would be like me back in the day going up for one of my disciplinary hearings and shouting, ‘Jock, Mr Stein – that’s it, I’m not playing for Scotland any more’.”
McGregor’s national team glove rival Craig Gordon has lot his place to Scott Bain in the Celtic line-up and that could see his replacement move up the pecking order.
McLeish said: “I am in close dialogue with Steve Woods and we will make decisions when the time comes. We have had Scott on the Central America trip and we know what his capabilities are.
“He has done well for Celtic. There is a good fight between two fantastic keepers so we are lucky.”
Scotland will play only their second competitive match on an artificial surface when they kick off the campaign against Kazakhstan in Astana on March 21.
McLeish admitted the gruelling flight and six-hour time difference as well as possible sub-zero temperatures will make it a testing group opener.
Celtic and Aberdeen have both previously played there in Europe and McLeish said: “There’s been a lot of dialogue with the performance guys and different clubs.
“We will stay on British time
during our stay in Kazakhstan. That is how people travelling there approach it.
“We had guys out there, including Graeme Jones our performance head, for a few days.
“They tried to change to Kazakh time and their bodies were all over the place. It was a nightmare.
“It’s still going to be pretty winterish. We arrive there Monday morning so we will train Tuesday, Wednesday. It will be astroturf and maybe by the time we get on it the guys will be used to it.
“We are trying to leave no stone unturned and get off to a flyer. We don’t want any excuses.
“Kazakhstan will be very keen in their opening game too. The nation will be enthusiastic, just like we are.
“They will want a lift-off but we need to counter that and concentrate on what we have done well in the last few games and take that into this campaign.”