Graeme Murty believes that David Bates deserves a Scotland call up!
With Scotland’s reputation dragged further through the mud by the appointment of Alex McLeish as manager it seems that fresh depths are about to be reached.
Not content with 20 years of failure at international level campaigns are underway to get Greg Docherty, Jamie Murphy and now Bates into the international squad.
It seems that half a dozen decent games at Ibrox are enough to merit a Scotland call up and cap while players at Kilmarnock and Motherwell are ignored despite being consistently impressive all through the season.
Bringing in half a dozen Sevco aces should help fill the empty spaces at Hampden for a Friday night friendly with Costa Rica and add value to Murty’s squad.
Looking forward to McLeish’s first squad announcement Murty told The Sun: “David’s starting for Rangers at centre back, which is one of the biggest stages in Britain, and is doing okay.
“I still think there is room for improvement and there are areas of development for him, but I think it would be a very telling landmark on the young man’s journey.
“He’s just got to concentrate on his own game and let a man who was a fantastic centre-half come to him and say ‘you know what, you need to do this better or do that better’.
“Coming from the Scotland manager to young David would be invaluable to his career.
“He’d really benefit from that but he knows he has put himself in a really good position where people are now looking at him as a potential Scotland player.
“I would hope to have a few involved with Scotland. We have some players who are in good form, playing for a good club but I’d suggest to the players that we take care of our business and let Scotland and the new manager come to them rather than be expectant of anything.
“I always thought that was the best way to be as a player, not to expect anything, just to be grateful if it came along.”
Bates is the lowest paid first team player at Ibrox and has still to be offered a contract for next season.
