Rangers defender Nathan Patterson has had his first few training sessions as part of Steve Clarke’s Scotland squad – and right-back rival Stephen O’Donnell has joked that he hopes the teenager gets pushed into a different position.
Patterson is the only real rival to O’Donnell’s hopes of being the starting right back as Scotland return to a major competition after a 23-year absence and the Motherwell star has been impressed with how he’s settled into the squad.
As the youngest player to ever be selected by Scotland for a major tournament, O’Donnell admits it’s good for Patterson to have an experienced team-mate from Rangers in the squad in Jon McLaughlin – but confessed he doesn’t even think Patterson will need that support.
“I’ve not played with Nathan but today in training you could see he’s very comfortable with the ball and he has plenty of confidence,” O’Donnell said, as quoted by the Daily Record.
“The way he was getting on the ball, as if he was a centre-mid or something, so I’ll hopefully be able to push him in there.
“But no, he looks like he’s settled in well, and obviously he’s got Jon{McLaughlin} from Rangers who I’m sure will put an arm around his shoulder.
“But I don’t think he will even need that.”
Will Patterson feature for Scotland?
Despite this being Patterson’s maiden call-up to the Scotland squad, the teenager is almost certain to get some minutes in the two pre-tournament friendlies against the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
If he does get his chance to play, Clarke may well find it hard to keep him on the bench by the time the tournament actually gets started.
After impressing for Rangers in the league and in Europe, Patterson has already shown the big occassions don’t seem to faze him so there should be little concern from Clarke if he does decide to pitch him in against Croatia, Czech Republic and England.
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