Why does Strachan distrust SPFL players?

Gordon Strachan's Scotland tenure has been largely a success...but with few players from the domestic league

Earlier this week, Gordon Strachan named his Scotland squad for the Qatar and Republic of Ireland games this June.  While I share most right-thinking supporters’ outrage at the Scottish FA’s decision to arrange an international friendly game with Qatar in the first place, I shall for the moment set aside any underlying concerns over human rights issues and abuse of workers, and instead advocate for the poor Scots currently plying their trade as professional footballers in this country to be given the chance to represent their national team. (Never let it be said that this writer does not have his priorities in order…)

Only seven of the twenty-six players called up play in Scotland. Much was made in the media of Dundee goalkeeper Scott Bain getting his first call-up to the Scotland squad, and it is a call-up that is fully deserved based on the performances I have seen from him this season (admittedly, these have predominantly been performances that have been frustrating Aberdeen all season, but great performances nonetheless…).  However, it’s questionable whether he will actually get to participate in either of the forthcoming matches.

Dundee's Scott Bain was called up for the first time...but will be third string keeper

Strachan has called up other goalies from our domestic league – see Partick Thistle’s Scott Fox and Kilmarnock’s Craig Samson - who remain on the same number of international caps as I do.  Hell, even Jamie Langfield has been called up in the past, so it can hardly be that privileged a position.  Regular Scotland squad bridesmaid Mark Reynolds was the only other uncapped player in the squad, with Celtic regulars Craig Gordon, Charlie Mulgrew, Scott Brown, James Forrest and Leigh Griffiths making up the SPFL contingent.  But what about ICT’s Graeme Shinnie?  Aberdeen’s Ryan Jack?  Celtic’s (and, erstwhile, Dundee United’s) Gary Mackay-Steven and Stuart Armstrong?

In the nineteen Scotland internationals that have been played since the beginning of 2013, Strachan has awarded just thirty-eight caps to player who were, at that time, plying their trade in Scotland.  By far the majority of those (twenty-six) have been awarded to just two players – Scotland skipper Brown (fourteen) and Mulgrew (twelve).  Another three Celtic players have been capped by Strachan so far - Forrest and Gordon, who have two caps apiece; and Kris Commons, who came off the bench for the last 15 minutes of Strachan’s first game in charge at Pittodrie against Estonia before retiring from international football.

Outwith Celtic, only 7 (SEVEN!) Scotland caps have been awarded to players at Scottish clubs in those nineteen games, a shockingly low number. As you may have noticed, I have so far been avoiding saying ‘SPFL Premiership’ – is that because Lee Wallace is one of the seven, you ask?  Worse - he’s two of the seven; two substitute appearances while he was playing for Rangers in the Scottish third tier.  How depressing.  

Strachan was happy to call up Lee Wallace when he was plying his trade in Scotland's fourth tier

Andrew Robertson made a couple of substitute appearances as a Dundee United player, though he didn’t make his first start until after joining Hull City; Andy Webster managed a full 90 minutes at the Estonia match at Pittodrie while a Hearts player and was never selected again; Leigh Griffiths started one match for Scotland while on loan to Hibs from Wolves, making it to 64 minutes before being hooked; and Gary Mackay-Steven, when he was still at Dundee United, came on for his only Scotland appearance to date at the 84 minute mark.

To put the above into context, the number of caps Gordon Strachan has given to SPFL players is less than the number of caps he’s given to players at English Championship side Brighton & Hove Albion – indeed, as many caps as former Kilmarnock defender and current Seagulls skipper Gordon Greer has managed to obtain all by himself.  When explaining to the media why Greer came in for the injured Grant Hanley to make his first competitive start in the 2-2 draw in Poland, Strachan's assistant Mark McGhee explained “I see Gordon a lot as I live in Brighton and I see a bit of Brighton and they defend with composure. We knew we’d require that when we played in Poland.”  Some Dons fans were delighted to learn that the club are playing Brighton for Jamie Langfield's testimonial - it might get the Scotland coaches to watch an Aberdeen game for a change.  Sadly, that would only be likely if the match was going to be played at Falmer Stadium rather than Pittodrie.

Is it right that Brighton veteran Gordon Greer is considered a better option than Aberdeen's Mark Reynolds?

On that particular night, manager Gordon Strachan had Greer, Christophe Berra of Ipswich and Aberdeen’s Mark Reynolds as possible replacements.  So far was Reynolds from the Scotland manager’s reckoning that, in spite of Hanley having to be withdrawn from the Scotland squad the day before the game, he couldn’t even find a place on the bloated twelve-man bench.  During the last set of international fixtures, and in spite of Strachan promising that all squad members would get a run out in one of the two matches, Reynolds still sat on the bench for the entire friendly match against Northern Ireland, and in the stand against Gibraltar.

It wouldn’t have been hard for the Scotland management to notice how Reynolds was playing had anyone cared to check on his performances.  Indeed, prior to getting a rest last weekend, he’d played in every minute of every league game for Aberdeen over the last two seasons. Indeed, if you watch Aberdeen then you literally can’t miss him. On the other hand, if McGhee can watch Brighton he can then get home for his tea.

Let’s be honest, Gordon Strachan has done a good job as the manager of the Scottish national football team to date, and it’s hard to argue with his results. But there are a lot of people who obviously don’t rate the SPFL – not least those who are supposedly responsible for organising the game in Scotland and promoting it to the wider world – and are happy to denigrate Scottish football, implying that the standard of football is not good enough. Yet, it hasn’t seemed to deter the national team coaches of Belgium (Jason Denayer), the Netherlands (Virgil van Dyk), England (Fraser Forster), Slovakia (Filip Kiss), Wales (Kyle Letheren and Adam Matthews), Greece (Georgios Samaras) and Ghana (Wakaso Mubarak) from calling up players from the SPFL; these nations are currently ranked ahead of us by FIFA.  Even our imminent World Cup qualifying opponents, the Republic of Ireland, have called up the SPFL Premiership’s top goal scorer in Adam Rooney.

Before his international debut, Matt Ritchie had never even been to Scotland

I would argue that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the standard of Scottish football that should deter the national manager from selecting players from its ranks when they are patently good enough to do so.  Furthermore, it is important to foster the link between the Scotland national team and its supporters, many of whom live in Scotland and support Scottish football teams.  While I bear no particular ill will to Scotland’s most recent debutant, Bournemouth’s Matt Ritchie - or indeed to Strachan for seeking to improve the resources he has at his disposal – it can feel disenfranchising to hear a player who has been selected to play for the national team admit that he thinks of himself as English rather than Scottish, or that he hadn’t visited Scotland until the day he arrived for his international debut.

Maybe none of the above matters.  If Gordon Strachan gets us to our first major competition in 20 years and never plays another SPFL player in the process, he’ll still get the full backing of the SFA and the undying admiration and appreciation of a Tartan Army that has been starved of tangible achievements for almost a generation.  But it wouldn’t hurt to play Mark Reynolds just once, would it?

Martin Ingram (MI) is our Aberdeen Correspondent.  Legend has it that he is the tallest man in the Red Army.  He writes regularly for Aberdeen fanzine The Red Final.