‘If he is good enough, he is old enough’

Former Scotland manager Brown tips Gilmour

CRAIG BROWN looked on at Wembley as a young Barry Ferguson ran the show for Scotland and was left in no doubt that he had been right to throw the Rangers prodigy into the national team set-up from an early age.

At 21, it was Ferguson’s fifth cap for his country, but he controlled the match against seasoned international players such as Paul Scholes and Paul Ince, leading the Scots to a 1-0 win over the Auld Enemy as they fell just short of qualification for Euro 2000.

Twenty years on, and the nation still hasn’t been back to the party. But the Tartan Army are once again excited about the emergence of a potential top-class talent in midfield in the shape of former Rangers kid Billy Gilmour, who has burst onto the scene at Chelsea in the past week, picking up man-of-the-match awards against both Liverpool and Everton with classy and dominant performances that belie his tender years.

Gilmour is just 18, and has yet to receive a full cap for his country, but Brown believes that if Scotland are to give themselves the best possible chance of not missing out yet again, then Gilmour has to be in the thoughts of current manager Steve Clarke.

“On the evidence of what I’ve seen, I think he’s ready,” Brown said. “I saw the boy playing for the youths at Rangers a couple of years back against Aberdeen, and he was a standout, there’s no doubt about it. He would have been 15 or 16 at the time, and you could just tell that he was a player. In my opinion, age is not a barrier for him playing for Scotland. It’s his ability that counts.

“I remember when we played England at Wembley in 2000, the best player on the park was Barry Ferguson. He was a wee bit older than Gilmour, but he controlled the match against the likes of Scholes and Ince. The best player on the park was the youngest player on the park.

“It is a similar situation that Stevie faces now. People were clamouring for Barry to be in the team, but in fairness, he had played more than a couple of games for Rangers by then.

“In my opinion though, I wouldn’t exclude Gilmour on the basis that he has only made a handful of appearances for Chelsea. He’s playing at a far higher level than the Scottish Premiership. It’s far more difficult down there, a much more difficult environment.

“If he is good enough, he is old enough, in my opinion.

Scotland squad

2020 play-offs.

“He’s a scorer,” Brown said. “He has that thing that the other strikers we have at the moment probably don’t, and I wouldn’t hesitate to have him in the squad.

“I actually think his attitude has changed for the better. I’ve met him at one or two dinners, and he couldn’t have been more courteous or polite. I’m Mr Brown, and when I tried to tell him to call me Craig, he wouldn’t have it.

“And yet, you saw some of the things he would do on the pitch and you would wonder if he

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If he’s playing for Chelsea and holding his own against Liverpool, then it stands to reason that he has to be good enough. That is Stevie’s decision though.”

With Scot Gemmill due to announce his Scotland Under-21 squad today for qualifiers against Croatia and Greece later this month, Scotland fans won’t have to wait long to find out if Gilmour has made the step up for the EURO 2020 play-off game against Israel.

Reports yesterday suggested

was a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde character.

“But I think he is a player of undoubted goalscoring ability. If you’ve got him through the middle and you put the ball into the penalty box, then you’ve got chances of scoring.

“I was interested in bringing him to Aberdeen on loan when I was there, and we nearly had him, too. The wages were a stumbling block.

“We were to regret it, because he ended up at Hibs and we got them in the semi-finals of the cup. And who scored the winner? Leigh Griffiths. Sod’s law. the Scotland management team see the increased gametime Gilmour will get at that level to be in his best interests, but Brown says the senior side has to be the priority.

“People might say that it is better for him to get more game-time for the Under-21s, but it’s not about what is better for him, it’s about what is better for Scotland,” he said.

“If he is good enough for the first-team then I think that’s where he would want to be anyway. For me, half an hour in the first team would be as much

It is his ability that counts

“If we got him, we wouldn’t have lost that game. It was an offside goal mind you, but that was us beaten 2-1. That was probably my biggest heartache in football, that the guy I was going to sign came back to haunt me.

“The only question is, if Leigh Griffiths is on the field for you, is he likely to score? And the answer is yes.”

Brown points to Griffiths’ ability to finish with one touch as a sure-fire sign of a top-level striker.

“I’m a statistics guy and everybody slags me for it, but four out of five goals at the top