ALAN Hutton’s Scotland career is over after the defender advised Gordon Strachan that he no longer wishes to be considered for international selection.
Scotland may also have to manage without Scott Brown in Friday’s World Cup qualifier against England, after he picked up a foot injury in Celtic’s 3-0 league win over Inverness Caledonian Thistle yesterday.
Hutton, who won his 50th cap in the friendly against Czech Republic in March, had also been in line to start at Wembley but informed Strachan recently that he has decided to call time on his international career. The 31-year-old made his debut against Austria in May 2007 and went on to become first-choice right-back under a number of Scotland managers, even when he wasn’t featuring regularly at club level.
News of his retirement surprised Strachan who will now have to decide whether to hand Hearts’ Callum Paterson his fifth cap against England, move Russell Martin from central defence to right-back, or ask Ikechi Anya to take on a more defensive role.
“Alan Hutton has taken himself out of the frame to be an international player,” revealed Strachan. “Was it out of the blue? A wee bit. He’s maybe in a position now where he’s thinking, ‘How long is that? Ten years? Have I done enough?’
“I think you can have a look at the squad and make your own mind up [about whether Hutton would have started against England]. But we respect the decision. At this moment in time he doesn’t want to be in the frame to be selected. I spoke to him a couple of times. But you just speak. I’m no psychoanalyst, I didn’t want to get that deep into it.”
Strachan revealed a preference to choose Hutton’s replacement from within the existing group rather than go back to those who have not been involved recently like, for example, Phil Bardsley.
“There’s a group of absent players out there who I really don’t want to bring in if they are over a certain age unless they are going to get a game,” he said. “I try and keep it to the same squad, unless there is someone out there who is blowing it away and saying ‘you just have to pick me’, which is fine. I said to my son who is [assistant manager] at Doncaster, ‘don’t go and buy another right-back, move someone over there who’s a right midfielder but he feels part of the squad’. It keeps that team spirit together. So it’s a bit like that.”
London-born Paterson, who started the first three games of Scotland’s campaign, is now in pole position to feature against the country of his birth.
“Callum has never let us down. I think he’s getting better and better at right-back. He’s not the world’s greatest right-back but I really think he did alright in Slovakia. I don’t have a problem with that. He gives you other things, he’s a presence in both boxes. He can put in a good cross. He’s learning his trade as a right-back, unfortunately it’s at the highest level in international football. But that will help him and that will help Hearts.”
Brown’s involvement in Friday night’s game is now in doubt after the midfielder, who ended his 70-day international retirement to make himself available again to Strachan, limped off after an hour of Celtic’s win over Inverness.
“It’s a sore one because even if he does get knocks he doesn’t come off easy,” said his manager Brendan Rodgers. “It looked like the top of his foot. When he came off he said his foot was numb, so I think he’s taken a fair whack. We’ll see how he is and then the medical team either here or with Scotland will decide whether he’s fit to play.”
Team-mate Leigh Griffiths, though, was confident Brown would make it. “Broony is a warrior so I’m sure he’ll be fine,” said the striker. “He’ll be fired up to go to Wembley and make amends for the last time we went down there when we got beat.”
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