NOT since Craig Brown in the mid-to- late 1990s and the goalkeeping rivalry between Jim Leighton and Andy Goram has a Scotland manager faced such a conundrum when it comes to shoehorning the talents of two top class exponents of the same position into his starting line-up.

The calf problem which afflicted Kieran Tierney in March and the unavailability of both he and Andy Robertson for the summer tour of Mexico and South America means that Alex McLeish has had six months or so to sweat over how to accommodate arguably his two best players, not to mention two of the emerging left backs in world football, into his tactical shape. Against Belgium on Friday we should finally have his answer.

Perhaps we don’t even have to wait that long – the Scotland manager all but confirmed last night that his most likely solution is taking a page out of Gareth Southgate’s book by shunting Tierney back in as a mobile member of his back three, with Robertson bringing his pace and attacking endeavour to the left-wing back role in front of him. While the unavailability of Scott McKenna leaves few other options in this Scotland squad, McLeish reckons England did well to find a tactical compromise capable of getting the best out of both Kyle Walker and Kieran Trippier during the World Cup in Russia and plans to go along with the trend.

“If you look at trends in modern-day football, you’ll see that a lot of coaches like their full-backs to be able to play at centre-back and vice versa,” said McLeish. “Marcelo Bielsa [the former Chile manager, now at Leeds United] has always had that philosophy. I’m not saying I’m copying Bielsa, but a lot of these guys are inspirational, [Pep] Guardiola too.

“If you look at what England did at the World Cup, they accommodated two fantastic right-backs from Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur in Trippier and Walker,” he added. “Kyle Walker has gone to centre-back position in the three and adapted very easily.

“Tierney I’m sure can slot into the left-back position if Andy’s forward. He can come back in to play the centre-half role, as he did in the game at Aberdeen, and I really believe he’s capable of playing there. He’s a good footballer and we want to encourage the back guys to play football as well. We don’t want them taking big risks but we do want these guys to play the ball out if we are able to do in terms of getting players to receive the ball. It might be I’d have played them all - McKenna, Tierney and another one of the young ones in the friendly game, just to have a look at that and see how it balanced out but the way it’s worked out has made it a bit easier.”

If we assume that John Souttar of Hearts, the evergreen Charlie Mulgrew of Blackburn Rovers and Tierney are the back three against the admittedly fearsome Belgians, that is a Scottish back line with more football to them than most. McLeish is easily lampooned as an old-school figure but as a coach he has always placed great store not only on winning possession, but keeping it too. Callum McGregor is as trustworthy on the ball as anyone in Scotland, even if the withdrawal of Fulham’s Tom Cairney robs the squad of another possession player.

“What we really need at international level is players who are going to have the courage to get on the ball, who are going to get into positions to receive it, and h e[McGregor] can do that. In international football, the loss of possession is pretty often devastating and that is something we need as a Scottish nation, not just the Scottish national team. A lot of these players can handle the ball and are capable of keeping it.”

Not only did the biggest win of McLeish’s first time charge, the 1-0 win against France in Paris in 2007, become revered for James McFadden’s long-range winner, it actually showcase a Scotland team keen to keep the ball off much-vaunted opponents. Pointing to the fact he saw even the mighty Brazil playing at times with ten men behind the ball in Russia. McLeish knows that keeping possession calmly in defence – particularly in transition – is a huge part of the modern game. “We had Barry Ferguson who would take the ball in any stadium in the world, make himself available,” said McLeish. “You would never used to see ten Brazilians behind the ball but the reason for that is when they got the ball they always had a team-mate to find”

John McGinn and Scott McTominay are in play for a midfield slot. It hardly seems fair for that callow pairing to have to keep an eye on Eden Hazard, even if Kevin de Bruyne is long term injured and unavailable. “Chelsea is quite close to where I am down here so I see a lot of them and Hazard is one of those players where you just look and say, ‘get the wee man on the ball’. He’s a box of tricks but obviously we don’t want him on that ball too much next week.”