Celtic pair pull out of Scotland squad, amid injury concerns

Anthony Ralston is the last Celtic man standing in Steve Clarke’s Scotland squad for the Nations League matches against Poland at Hampden on Thursday night and Portugal in Lisbon on Sunday.

Callum McGregor had called time on his international career a few weeks ago to concentrate on playing for Celtic and every time the national team manager shows up at a game, the Celtic captain is finding the back of the net, that’s three already this season, beating his own record from last season already!

If Clarke is going to be without Callum McGregor he thought he could count on the three other Celts who were in his squad for the ill-fated Euro 2024 finals in Germany back in June. And Greg Taylor, James Forrest and Anthony Ralston were all called up for the Poland and Portugal matches in this international break.

However the news today is that both James Forrest, who made his 500th appearance for Celtic at the weekend and Greg Taylor, who was outstanding in that 3-0 win over theRangers, are both listed by the Scotland National Team account as being among the call-offs.

In a Squad update they report that there are four withdrawals from the original squad – Ché Adams, James Forrest, Robby McCrorie and Greg Taylor and three additional players have been called up -Connor Barron, Josh Doig and Jon McCracken

As yet there’s no news on why Forrest and Taylor have called off, presumably both must be carrying a knock after the weekend’s exertions. Both players incidentally travelled to Germany but were unused subs in all the games. That though is unlikely to be a factor as both players always show up for the national side when called upon and represent Scotland with great personal pride.

Steve Clarke will probably give an update at his media conference ahead of the game with Poland.

PS: Connor Barron getting the nod ahead of Luke McCowan? Four out and only three coming in? Interesting…