Rangers’ John Souttar to be overlooked for Scotland again? | OneFootball

Scotland’s national side has been completely ravaged by injury in recent times, meaning Steve Clarke’s initial squad had to be totally reset and new call ups made to compensate for the losses.

We’ve already made our feelings clear about Rangers’ Liam Kelly being overlooked in favour of Hearts’ veteran and leaker of goals Craig Gordon, despite the Rangers man’s lack of game time, and we must also note that despite the injury crisis hitting defence, we still don’t expect Ibrox stalwart John Souttar to play.

Clarke lost some defenders to injury, including Scott McKenna, but we’d be very surprised if Rangers man Souttar starts any of the upcoming internationals.

There is no doubt Clarke has a bit of a blind spot to Rangers – we don’t also deny our own Scottish contingent is still not strong enough to merit a major say in the international picture, but the stubbornness on Clarke’s part to try to avoid Rangers players where he can seems a tad immature.

Souttar of course does have caps, but not very many for a 28-year-old. Just 9. McKenna on the other hand, has 37.

Clarke isn’t an awful lot friendlier with Celtic players either, in all fairness, but then Celtic have a few more Scots in their team – Ralston, Forrest, Taylor and McGregor, with the latter of course retired from Scotland duty. The former three were all called up.

Who would be called up from Rangers?

Souttar, Barron (he’s remaining in the U21s due to their success, apparently), and Kelly, we suppose. It’s admittedly slim pickings.

But there’s no denying Souttar is in decent form, and worthy of a shout at national level.

The chances of this manager picking him though are pretty modest at best.