Steve Clarke has been handed a major boost ahead of this summer's European Championships.
Southampton have issued an update on the fitness of Scotland attacker Stuart Armstrong.
The 32-year-old sustained a serious-looking injury during his side's 2-1 defeat to Cardiff on Saturday afternoon. The former Celtic and Dundee United player was stretchered off the field, with the game deep into stoppage time in the Welsh capital.
This sparked major concerns that Scotland would be without yet another key player for Euro 2024, with Nathan Patterson and Aaron Hickey's inclusions looking increasingly doubtful.
We're right behind you, Stu 🙏
— Southampton FC (@SouthamptonFC) April 22, 2024
Stuart Armstrong has been ruled out for the remainder of the season:
However, Russell Martin insists the injury isn't as bad as first fear for Armstrong, and that he has a 'realistic' chance of making this summer's competition.
“It’s his quad, it’s a muscle injury,” the Saints boss confirmed. “We’ll do everything we can to get him fit for the EUROs for Scotland. I think he has a big chance for that, I don’t think he has any chance of playing for us really.”
“He has a big hope of getting in the Scotland squad because he’s been fantastic for them and for us this season and has been in every squad, and I think there’s a realistic chance with the injury he has to be fit for that.
“So we will do everything we can as a football club to help him get there. It wasn’t as serious as we all feared but it is serious enough to keep him out for a period of time now where he can’t help us unfortunately.”
READ MORE: The Celtic player who jinxed Joe Hart as champions eye up the final straight
Meanwhile, given that the goalkeeper ended up hitting a penalty before Alistair Johnston, it was probably a fair indication that the Canadian wasn’t all that keen to step up to the spot during Saturday’s dramatic shootout victory for Celtic over Aberdeen.
As it transpired, the right back still had to take one, and his calm finish belied the nerves he later revealed he was feeling at the time. He doesn’t blame Joe Hart though for missing his own penalty and subsequently putting him through the mill, but rather, Cameron Carter-Vickers for jinxing his colleague with his over confidence.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here