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Dominic Hyam inclusion in the Scotland squad for the Euro 2024 qualifying double header against Spain and Malta back in March might have caused some to furrow their brows but for those who have measured his progress in recent years, there was no such surprise.
Certainly not for Mark Robins, the manager of Coventry City, where Hyam was player of the year in 2018-19, a season in which the Midlands club achieved promotion from Sky Bet League Two.
Robins knows a thing or two about playing at the top level having started his career at Manchester United, so his opinion on Hyam – who has been included once again for Scotland's latest round of qualifying fixtures – is one worth listening to.
A few years back he said: “Dominic has been phenomenal and his rise from when he came in to where he is now, he has done exceptionally well to improve as he has done. There is still improvement in him, there is definitely that.”
That assessment came in November 2021 when Hyam was still a 25-year-old. It was an opinion shared by at least one other manager, Jon Dahl Tomasson, who took over at Blackburn Rovers last summer and immediately brought in the centre half for £1.5m rising to to £2.5m, a fee that Coventry put to good use by relaying the playing surface at the CBS Arena which had been damaged by Wasps in a rugby match.
“The first game he played at Blackpool, everyone was ‘mate’, I put him immediately in the team because you could see the quality,” recalled Tomasson last month of Hyam's earliest days at the club. “His quality is extremely good, he’s able to play a lot of games, he’s solid and you want a defender to be solid. He’s a leader by example.”
The Dane was speaking at the Blackburn player of the year awards where Hyam had scooped the main award plus the players' player equivalent to add to those same gongs he had scooped at Coventry, further evidence of his scope for further developing his game. It might have been a season of disappointment for Rovers as they just missed out on the promotion play-offs but it was one of personal satisfaction for Hyam. Not only for the aforementioned awards but because his 181 clearances in the Championship were good enough for seventh best in the division while his scorpion kick in the 2-0 win over Watford in September was one of the EFL's goals of the season.
Given the problems at centre half facing Steve Clarke – at perhaps the worst possible time with Erling Haaland in opposition when Scotland take on Norway on Saturday – Hyam could well make his senior debut, having won five Under-21 caps and three for the Under-19s, for whom his central defensive partner was John Souttar. In a quirk of fate, the pair may well find themselves reunited in that role in Oslo at the weekend.
Not surprisingly, Hyam, 27, is unfazed by the prospect having tested himself against Ivan Toney and Alexander Mitrovic, two players who have since gone on to demonstrate their credentials in the Premier League, during the pair's time in the Championship.
While he admits Haaland is the next level up from even those two, he is a glass-half-full kind of guy.
“You want to test yourself against the best, and if you don’t, you are probably in the wrong sport,” he said recently. “We know he’s a quality player, but it’s nothing to worry about, it’s something to relish.”
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