Scotland boss Craig Levein has warned Kris Commons that there are eight players ahead of him for an international cap!
Commons has been Celtic’s best player so far this season with his goal against Helsingborgs on Wednesday giving the club a great chance of reaching the group stage of the Champions League.
Rather than watch Commons, Charlie Mulgrew and Scott Brown in action in Sweden Levein opted to go to a Ramsdens Cup tie.
Since replacing George Burley Levein has had a mediocre record as Scotland boss with his only competitive wins coming against Liechtenstein and Lithuania with his reign punctuated by handing out caps to journeymen such as Gary Kenneth, Danny Wilson and Ian Black.
Asked about the chances of Commons being in the squad for the opening World Cup qualifiers against Serbia and Macedonia Levein decided to reel off a list of players ahead of the Celtic man for a place.
Levein said: “I sent an email to my coaches at the end of the last gathering and asked them to pick their 24 players and there’s absolutely no doubt Kris has hit a bit of form.
“We discussed the situation and I’ve got James Forrest, Matty Phillips, Robert Snodgrass, Steven Naismith, Shaun Maloney, James Morrison, Jamie Mackie and Barry Robson.
“These guys have been with me game in, game out. My allegiance is probably with those guys before anyone else.
“They’ve done well for Scotland and gone out and proved they’re capable of doing the job and shown great loyalty and turn up for games.
“I’m not in any way saying Kris won’t be involved, but of all the positions in the team I’d say that was our strongest area.
“I’m looking at two wide positions and I’ve named all these players who are more than capable and that’s before I even get to Kris. That for me is hugely positive. I can’t guarantee Kris a place.
“I could name five or six players before I get to Kris but he’s had a good start to the season.
“I think anyone would acknowledge he was poor last season but he’s started the way he was two years ago. I know that.”
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spot on sandy, thats all i think about whenever he mentions fletcher. levine bombed him out because he only tx’d him, while boyd, ferguson and mcgregor turned their back on scotland numerous times with false sicknotes only to play for their clubs 2 days later. Then there’s the later two also giving 2 finger salutes to the press/fans and supposedly being banned for life by the sfa – yet levine demanded they be allowed to play??? but not fletcher as he only tx’d him – gtfo levine and take that ned houston with you! strachan gave an interview while he was the celtic manager talking about how he had took his own time while in betweeen jobs to study the scotland setup from top to bottom and compare it with various countries around the world to see how to improve our national team and overall game. he said he was going to contact the sfa to see if he could be appointed to implement these things – then the tic came calling and he had to put it on hold. Maybe he could step in now.