Gemmill explains why he went for Bates over Kerr
SCOTLAND Under-21 boss Scot Gemmill has defended his decision to twice snub Jason Kerr – after St Johnstone manager Tommy Wright slammed the defender’s omission.
Gemmill overlooked the 21-year-old for his original squad for the forthcoming Euro 2019 qualifiers against Andorra and the Netherlands and then opted for Hamburg centre-half David Bates when John Souttar earned promotion to the senior squad.
Wright was left fuming on both occasions and claimed Gemmill’s stance is ‘beyond on belief’.
However, Gemmill has explained his reasons for choosing former Rangers player Bates, who is actually older than Kerr.
Gemmill said: “It’s straight forward in my head. I contacted Jason out of courtesy before I announced the squad. I told him we were working towards the next age group, therefore we were selecting a couple of younger defenders along with John Souttar as the older defender. John got promoted to the full squad and we’ve decided to bring in David Bates.
“We feel delighted we could give Jason the experience to play at international level, he went to the Toulon Tournament and has played for the under-21s.
“David has not had that opportunity yet. We tried to give him the experience when he was still a Rangers player but he was injured.
“Our job is to give the best young players in the country the experience and opportunity. Jason has done a great job for us but we’ve decided to give another player an opportunity.”