Dundee United manager Peter Houston finds himself in the spotlight of another club v country battle over Kris Commons.
The Celtic midfielder picked up a foot injury during Sunday’s 1-0 win over Aberdeen but is on international duty this week for the meaningless friendly with Denmark tomorrow night.
For the first half of this week Houston is Commons assistant manager- from Thursday morning he’ll be planning how to make the Celtic man as ineffective as possible when he takes his side to Parkhead.
If Houston and the SFA had any sense of fair play they’d assure Celtic that Commons won’t be used at Hampden and can return to his club on Wednesday afternoon to continue treatment on his foot injury.
Commons reported for Scotland duty on Monday before returning to Celtic for treatment with Houston refusing to rule him out of the squad to face the Danes.
“He’s not out of the squad yet,” the Dundee United boss stated. “There’s a huge improvement from yesterday. He’s coming back in tomorrow to be reassessed.”
Having lost last season’s championship by a single point Celtic assistant Alan Thompson knows the importance of beating Dundee United on Saturday and put the international fixture in perspective.
“”I think the important word is friendly,” Neil Lennon’s assistant explained. “Had it been a qualifier for Scotland then it puts a different slant on it.
“But with it being a friendly, we would much prefer him to be rested and try to get him right for the weekend, which will be touch and go, I would think.”
Celtic’s James Forrest and Scott Brown are in the Scotland squad which contains no Dundee United players.
Tonight at Celtic Park Thompson will take part in a tribute match for former team-mate John Kennedy whose career was effectively ended by an injury picked up in an international friendly against Romania.
CLICK HERE for Basel 3-3 Sion (including video)
CLICK HERE for Adam Matthews interview
Follow Video Celts on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube