BossGemmill disappointed at Ralston’s unavailability
TALKING SCOTLAND
SCOTLAND under-21 head coach Scot Gemmill admits he is disappointed that Tony Ralston won’t be available for the forthcoming matches against England and Latvia, with the player being made unavailable for selection by his club, Celtic.
Gemmill didn’t divulge the reason why the 19-year-old was not granted permission by his club to join the 23-man squad that he announced at Hampden yesterday for the European Championship qualifiers.
But Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers explained last night that the right-back had a slight tear to his meniscus, and needed the international break to recover.
Ralston played in the impressive two-nil win for the Scots over The Netherlands in their first match in the group, but will now sit out of the matches at the Riverside Stadium and the Stadions Daugava.
“Anthony Ralston, it was communicated from Celtic, is unavailable for selection,” said Gemmill. “We can only select players that are available for selection.
“You’d need to speak to Celtic. There’s a process in place where the clubs communicate with our office and we can only select players who are available for selection, and we were informed by Celtic that Tony is not available for selection right now.
“Tony did brilliantly in the summer, has been doing great for his club and did great in the first game we played a few weeks ago.
“It’s an opportunity for whoever players instead of him. That’s the age level, isn’t it? Somebody doesn’t play and the next person comes in.
“So, we move on. We obviously hope Tony is available for selection for the next game.”
One man who Gemmill has named in his squad is Rangers centre-back Ross McCrorie, despite his manager Pedro Caixinha stating at the weekend that he would prefer to test his young defender against Benfica in a friendly in Toronto on the same night as the England game.
Gemmill hopes that he isn’t forced into invoking the Uefa five-day rule to ensure McCrorie’s inclusion in his squad, and he believes the situation can be resolved amicably.
“Obviously we are keen for Ross to be with the national team,” he said. “We’ve spoken to Rangers and I’m sure everything will be amicable.
“We feel the Uefa ruling supports him coming with the national team. We think he’s going to be involved in a couple of really high-level games so I don’t think it will be an issue. We believe we have priority.
“I’m biased as I’m the Scotland under-21 coach, but I think that coming with us he’ll be an important member of the squad.
“We want our best players to be with us. I don’t think there’s any surprise in me saying that.
“There’s communication between the office here at Hampden and Rangers and I don’t see it being a problem.”
GEMMILL was pleased to not only hear Pedro Caixinha talking in glowing terms of McCrorie and his potential in the past week, but by backing up his words by selecting him to play against Celtic on Saturday.
“I think it’s great that his manager has been so complimentary to him,” he said. “I think it’s absolutely brilliant that the manager trusted him to play.
“He’s been patiently waiting for his opportunity. Obviously, we are a little bit biased as we’ve been lucky to work with him at all age groups.
“Anybody that knows Ross would know he was always going to handle the occasion.
“He’s really level-headed. He’d been waiting for that chance so we’re delighted for him.” mances and he’s been a big part of that.”
Gemmill meanwhile revealed he wasn’t concerned by Hamilton midfielder Greg Docherty’s brief flirtation with the Republic of Ireland as he recalled him to the Scotland fold.
He said: “I personally haven’t spoken to Greg, and maybe I am being naive, but there was never any doubt in my mind that he would play for us.
“He knows how highly I regard him. I don’t know how serious the interest was from Ireland, but I wasn’t concerned at all.”