Clarke on Scotland plan for Aaron Hickey, and hopes for Lennon Miller in Serie A

The return of Aaron Hickey to the Scotland set-up has – for the player, his manager, and the Tartan Army – been a long time coming.

With the greatest of respect to Anthony Ralston, who came through a tough start to the European Championships in Hickey’s stead to prove himself a more than able operator on the right for his country, there can be little argument that the inclusion of the Brentford full back after almost two years of absence will improve Steve Clarke’s team.

Ralston is still likely to get his fair share of minutes in the dark blue mind you as Hickey is eased back into the fold after such a long period on the sidelines, particularly during next week’s World Cup qualification double header against Denmark and Belarus, but just having the former Hearts kid as an option once more had clearly proved a fillip for Clarke as he spoke to the media yesterday.

The Scotland head coach was effusive in his praise for Hickey, not just as a player, but as a person, having taken the complications of a horrendous hamstring injury seemingly in his stride, and he is sure he is ready to arrive back into the national team camp and pick up where he left off, which remarkably was the match against Spain in Seville back in October 2023.

(Image: SNS Group)
“He’s very single-minded and determined,” Clarke said.

“He knows what he wants to do. I just find him to be a good person.

“I had a really good chat with him last week. Nothing seems to faze him. He’s been two years out, or almost two years out at that stage of your career, which could be a very difficult thing. He wasn’t fazed at all.

“He was really looking forward to being in the squad. When he went to Italy, he just went out there, did what he did, played the way he plays.

“He got his move back to the Premier League and I think before he picked up the injury, he was actually linked with some of the top six clubs in the English Premier League, which shows you the quality that he’s got.

“We’ve also got to remember he’s been out for two years, and we do have to look after him on the way back in, both ourselves and Brentford.

“Probably with the two games back-to-back it’s going to be difficult for him to play two 90 minutes for sure. But if we can get him on the pitch at some stage and he can show the qualities that he’s shown, I think we’ll be really delighted with him.

“It’s good for us, and even better for Aaron. He’s been a long time out injured, and it was a difficult recovery process for him. It’s good to have him back in the squad.
“He’s good to go. Whether he’s good to go 90 minutes over two games is a different conversation. We’ll manage him.

“He’s a big player for us and a big player in the squad. It’s up to everybody to manage him properly. We’ll do that.”

Another player who has made a big impression on Clarke is Lennon Miller, who put in an eye-catching display on his first start for Scotland against Liechtenstein at the beginning of June before earning himself a £4.75m switch from Motherwell to Udinese.

The path from Scotland to Serie A is of course now a well-trodden one, and Clarke is hoping that the move to Italy can prove as fruitful to Miller as it has for international teammates like Scott McTominay, Billy Gilmour, Lewis Ferguson and Che Adams.

“It’s difficult to predict,” he said.

“It’s going to be down to Lennon. He’s gone out there, he’s made a big decision to go and play in Serie A.

“He’s at a club known as sort of mid-table, reasonably competitive, good club, with a nice stadium. It’s going to be down to Lennon. He’s got to get opportunities to play and then he has to grasp the opportunity and then if he plays as he can play, I’m sure he’ll be another Scottish success in Serie A.

“When they go out there, you make the choice to go, it’s a big decision to go. He had other options at clubs from England who spoke to me about taking him. He wanted to go abroad.

(Image: SNS Group) “It’s now down to him to grasp the opportunity and make sure that he plays week in, week out and his career continues to develop in a positive direction as it’s been going up till now.”

It was put to Clarke that starting this World Cup qualifying campaign – which will be played out over just three months – with two away fixtures was less than ideal, and flew in the face of the policy adopted by former Scotland boss Craig Brown to frontload fixtures at Hampden, but he doesn’t think the order of the matches will have any bearing on the final outcome.

“Craig must have been a very good negotiator to get the home games first!” he said.

“We’ve got two away games to start and two home games in October. It’s slightly different. Let’s see what we’ve got, what we need to get in the first two and then we’ll tell you after the next camp whether it was a good start or not.

“There’s never any room for error in a qualifying campaign. All you’re doing is you’re probably taking out the games against the pot five and the pot six teams where you have to pick up maximum points.

“In this one, you’re probably looking at the two Belarus games and saying you need maximum points from them. And then ourselves, Greece, and Denmark need to tough it out among ourselves and see who comes up with the most points.”

Clarke on Scotland plan for Aaron Hickey, and hopes for Lennon Miller in Serie A

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