Hickey unlikely to make it for Euros

Aaron Hickey looks set to miss out on the Scotland squad at Euro 2024 through injury.

The Brentford full-back has been sidelined since October with a hamstring problem.

Bees boss Thomas Frank revealed yesterday that Hickey will not play for the club again this season.

And when pressed on the 21-year-old’s prospects of appearing at this summer’s tournament, Frank was not optimistic.

“No, we’re not going to see him this season,” said Frank. “I’m not the manager of Scotland, but I don’t think it is positive.”

Hickey made his Scotland debut against Poland two years ago and has won 14 caps.

● Cologne’s Euro 2024 chief has revealed he expects “at least 100,000” Tartan Army fans to invade his city for the summer tournament.

And he believes Scotland will bring the same number of fans to the tournament as England, who will play Slovenia in the German city.

Scotland play Switzerland in their second fixture of the tournament in Cologne, after opening the tournament with a game against hosts Germany in Munich before a final group stage match against Hungary in Stuttgart.

Cologne’s Euro 2024 representative Gregor Timmer has revealed the staggering figures for the amount of fans he expects to visit their city, after detailed discussions with Scottish and English fan bodies and police forces.

He said: “After discussions with fan representatives and the police, the city is expecting over 100,000 fans from England and at least as many from Scotland to accompany their team to the games from Cologne.

“The research shows that Cologne is the most popular destination.

“The fan organisations of the individual countries were able to give very precise figures on how many fans they would bring.

“For the Belgians and Hungarians, who also will play here, the estimates were lower at 15,000 to 20,000 fans.

“The police assessed the match pairings in advance and came to the conclusion that we will not have any high-risk games in Cologne. We are very happy about that.”