Clarke has sympathy for Austria

SCOTLAND manager Steve Clarke has expressed total sympathy with Austria for their selection issues ahead of their Hampden trip next week.

But Clarke insists Scotland made a very fair offer to switch their home World Cup qualifiers around.

Austria are set to be without Bayern Munich defender David Alaba and a host of other Germanybased players – there were 18 in their most recent squad – because of quarantine rules in their neighbouring country.

Austria decided against requesting a neutral venue or accepting Scotland’s offer to switch fixtures because they hope to have a big crowd when Clarke’s men visit their country in September.

“We have 100% sympathy with the Austrians in the situation they find themselves in,” said Clarke.

“And, to be fair to ourselves, I believe in discussions with Uefa and Austria, we offered to flip the fixtures, which was quite a fair offer because it would have meant we were starting with Austria and Israel away in a tough start.

“But the problem it gave Austria was three home games in March and three away games in September.

“I can see their reasoning, why they didn’t want three games away in September, because we had the same last November.

“By the time we got to the Israel game, the third game in the road trip, the boys were pretty much emotionally and physically drained.

“So I can understand why they’ve gone the way they’ve chosen to go.

“They must be confident that they can get a strong Austrian team on the pitch, even without so many players from Germany.”

Steve Clarke