McLEISH SQUAD ‘QUITE THIN’ AFTER FRESH CALL-OFFS

Sporting Kansas City, set to join up for the second game in Mexico City. ‘It is getting quite thin,’ conceded McLeish. ‘We need to look for a couple of replacements. The guys going there will need to do giant-killing acts in South America. ‘Stuart has a little tweak in his hamstring. He flagged it up right away after the game (Celtic’s Scottish Cup final win over Motherwell). I believe it has been scanned. ‘He genuinely wanted to come. You have to hope everyone else genuinely wanted to come to play for their country and enhance their careers. ‘It is not to be. It is a shame to lose him — a very experienced guy and a tremendous player. But we are looking forward to the overall grand scheme of things.’ Souttar looked set to make the step up from the Under-21s to the full team but will now have to bide his time. ‘I was not really aware of that until Graeme Jones of the performance team (mentioned it) — they get the fitness for duty thing,’ explained McLeish. ‘We didn’t hear from him, so we thought there was a wee red flag there. John has had to pull out. The kid is gagging to play for the full national team. ‘He has come through the system and had a good season next to Christophe (Berra), so hopefully he will keep learning and improve on what has been a very good season for him.’ Adamant that he is powerless to prevent players from withdrawing if they have genuine medical reasons, McLeish says his remaining charges face an enormous task to ensure the matches against two nations finalising their plans for the World Cup are meaningful. ‘We have made some concessions with (James) McArthur and that kind of thing but the late call-offs were disappointing,’ he said. ‘But I am not blaming the players. We have some great players out there and we want them to be ready and available to play for Scotland.’ Confirming he will now place a call to exDundee United striker Russell, McLeish said: ‘He will miss the first game but he will come and play in the second game.’

STUART ARMSTRONG and John Souttar last night brought Alex McLeish’s call-off count for his summer friendlies to six — with the Scotland manager’s concerns over his ‘thin’ squad now mounting by the day. Saddled with end-of-season matches against Peru next Tuesday and Mexico a week on Saturday, McLeish named a watered-down squad for the arduous trip in order to appease club managers. Since announcing that, though, Allan McGregor, Matt Ritchie, Ryan Fraser and Barry Douglas have pulled out, with the further withdrawals yesterday of Celtic midfielder Armstrong and Hearts defender Souttar. McLeish has already drafted in Scott Bain, Stephen O’Donnell and Chris Cadden, with Johnny Russell, now of