Ibrox club Glasgow Rangers and Parkhead rivals Celtic lock horns in the Scottish Premiership Old Firm derby just a week after Scotland’s San Marino clash.
Scotland manager Alex McLeish has stated that he expects every player called up to the squad this month to turn up despite it being a crucial period in the domestic season.
The national side saw nine players drop out of the squad before the Nations League double-header against Albania and Israel back in November and McLeish is keen to avoid a repeat.
However, the Daily Record reports that Celtic and Liverpool – where captain Andrew Robertson plays – are due to be in action early on the day Scotland take their overnight flight to Kazakhstan for their Euro 2020 Group I opener.
Meanwhile, the fixture against San Marino takes place just seven days before the third Old Firm showdown of the season at Parkhead, with Rangers hoping to take advantage of Celtic’s mid-season managerial change and keep the Scottish Premiership title race alive.
Nevertheless, McLeish admits that he could find himself at loggerheads with the managers of those clubs from where the bulk of the Scotland players are drawn, but he hopes they acknowledge the importance of the games in terms of getting off to a good start in the qualifying campaign.
“I’m not expecting Neil Lennon, Steven Gerrard, Steve Clarke or Craig Levein to do me a favour,” he is quoted by the Daily Record as saying. “I’ll pick the squad and expect everyone to be there. Obviously, the Old Firm game is immediately after our match against San Marino but we’ll look after the players – we would do that anyway.”
Speaking about last year’s tour of South America and the concessions he says he made, McLeish suggested there was a knock-on effect from “genuine call-offs” which caused “paranoia” amongst players who subsequently pulled out as a precaution.
“There’s no hiding place now because we have the performance analysts and, when players hit the red lines, that’s when we take them out,” he added. “You used to say, ‘He looks all right so we’ll just play him’ but we don’t take risks nowadays.”
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