MONDAY JURY 1
WE’VE just about recovered from Thursday’s win over Israel but, before last night’s game with Slovakia, who enhanced their international prospects?
Massive kudos has to go to Lawrence Shankland, who proved he has the bottle for the big occasion by slotting home his penalty. There’s loads more to come from this young striker. 2 FIFA has already stated clubs won’t be forced to hand over players. It’s only a matter of time before the big guns take them up on it. Play-offs for Euro 2020 are one thing but the Nations League is a risk too far in the current climate.
As much as it was great to see a Scottish side buck the trend of another hard luck story, it was dreadful for 120 minutes. The honest assessment is that nobody caught the eye during arguably the hardest watch in our international football history.
WITH Nir Bitton and Odsonne Edouard testing positive on international duty, is there an argument for clubs refusing to allow their players to go?
No. Players will be picking up the virus in many environments and it’s just bad luck for Bitton and Edouard to find themselves in this position. If the clubs get to refuse nations access to their players then it’s time to call it a day at international level.
Declan Gallagher was excellent against the Israelis and the Motherwell defender showed he can handle the situation at this higher level.
That’s just not feasible. They either stop the international match programme altogether or they carry on as is. You can’t have the national team matches with clubs picking and choosing which players go.
I thought Gallagher was Scotland’s best player on the night and Ryan Fraser added some much needed spark when he came on.
Clubs can moan about it all they like but the fact is the vast majority of players still want to play for their country, so they’ll go if they’re fit to go. Any moves to stop them would breed resentment.