Steve Clarke could be without as many as six of his European Championship squad for tonight’s friendly against Holland in Portugal.
Yesterday the SFA announced that John Fleck had tested positive with Clarke claiming that they were 99.5% certain that he had become infected before flying out with the Scotland party on Friday. The Sheffield United midfielder trained and dined with his team-mates on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
After a year of operating the new protocols the SFA know the procedures. In August they postponed two Celtic matches when Boli Bolingoli didn’t self isolate following a trip to Spain, in October Ryan Christie missed matches after being deemed a close contact of Stuart Armstrong and in January 13 Celtic players had to self-isolate after being found to be close contacts of Chris Jullien with Neil Lennon claiming that the goalposts were moved.
Finally in February the SFA delayed by two months suspending Nathan Patterson after the young Covidiot picked up a Fixed Penalty for attending a house party with nine others.
The SFA claimed that Fleck’s 25 team-mates all returned negative tests but Video Celts understands that some players close to Fleck were left out of the trip to Portugal for tonight’s match.
It remains to be seen if Clarke claims that they are nursing niggling injuries or if there is another issue over their absence from tonight’s match.
At lunchtime on Tuesday the SFA stated:
The Scottish FA can confirm that John Fleck has tested positive for at the Scotland National Team basecamp at La Finca.
As a result he will self isolate as per Spanish Government guidelines and therefore not fly to Portugal for tomorrow’ match against the Netherlands.
The rest of the squad was retested and returned negative results today.
Testing negative didn’t seem to benefit Christie in October, despite six negative tests he was forced to self-isolate, missing matches for club and country.
Media access to the Scotland squad seems mainly to be by Zoom calls. The full story will emerge tonight when the teams and most importantly the substitutes are named for the match which kicks off at 7.45 Hampden time.
Callum McGregor, James Forrest, David Turnbull, Greg Taylor, Christie and Jack Hendry of Celtic are with the Scotland squad.
Video Celts contacted the SFA about the story, if a reply is given it will be published.
CLICK HERE for images of Fleck with the Scotland squad, it seems that no pictures are available of the squad leaving Alicante or arriving in Faro.
