{"id":634464,"date":"2025-12-15T18:49:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T18:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/634464\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T18:49:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T18:49:12","slug":"steve-clarke-to-see-if-harvey-barnes-will-commit-to-scotland-before-friendlies-scotland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/634464\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve Clarke to see if Harvey Barnes will commit to Scotland before friendlies | Scotland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steve Clarke plans to check on the extent to which Harvey Barnes will commit to playing for Scotland before friendly matches in March. The manager wants to know Barnes is \u00adsufficiently keen on swapping international allegiance<\/a> \u2013 he has a single cap for England \u2013 before con\u00adsidering the Newcastle player for a potential World Cup berth.<\/p>\n

Scotland\u2019s World Cup return after a 28-year wait<\/a> has put Barnes\u2019s inter\u00adnational future back on the agenda. The feeling within the Scottish \u00adFootball Association has thus far been that Barnes believes he can play for England again, but the player left the door open on a switch during an interview last month.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have to be committed, they have to want to play for Scotland<\/a>,\u201d Clarke said on Monday. \u201cIt is 26 [in a squad] again so there are some spaces there, but not too many.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clarke denied introducing a player such as Barnes to the squad so close to a World Cup<\/a> could disrupt team harmony. \u201cFootball players are quite selfish,\u201d he said. \u201cThey like to think that if someone is going to help them be better and the team to be better \u2026 like I said, as long as they come and they are \u00adcommitted then I am pretty sure anyone who comes into this group of players will enjoy it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clarke has raised the possibility of staying on as the Scotland manager beyond the World Cup. The 62\u2011year\u2011old\u2019s contract ends when his team exit the tournament and the widespread belief has always been he will call time on his tenure at that point. Yet Clarke is open to an extension. He will hold talks with the \u00adScottish FA in the early part of next\u00a0year.<\/p>\n

Steve Clarke has led Scotland to the World Cup for the first time since 1998. Photograph: Andrew Milligan\/PA<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would need to be right for me and I would need to find out whether it\u2019s right for them,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u00a0want to wait until the turn of the year, get the training camp and the bases sorted and get the [World Cup] programme sorted first. Hopefully, that will give me a little bit of time before the March games to sit down and just go through everything.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got a few questions for them in terms of how we move forward and how we make sure it\u2019s not over 20 years before we qualify for another World Cup.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis group of players can \u00addefinitely do 2028. Not all of them, but most of them. There is a lot to discuss moving forward beyond whether I try to make another tournament and carry on for another two years.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steve Clarke plans to check on the extent to which Harvey Barnes will commit to playing for Scotland…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-634464","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115725085274153473","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}