There is always a fear when players go away on international duty that they return unscathed and, given the current climate, this is an even greater worry.
Both Scotland and Northern Ireland are playing three games in the space of a week, hardly ideal preparation for an intense period of club games starting with Aberdeen at Ibrox next Saturday and this won’t have been helped with extra time being played in their respective play-off finals either.
Ryan Jack played a key role in helping Scotland make their first international tournament since 1998 but Steven Davis wasn’t quite as fortunate, losing out late on against Slovakia.
Despite both of the other fixtures that they have to play being competitive Nations League qualifiers, hopefully their managers will apply common sense when picking their teams for the next round of games and leave the Rangers men on the bench to let them recover – Davis in particular was visibly struggling in the closing stages as the conditions and the intensity of the match caught up with him.
Midfield is an area of the park where we are well catered for, however, it is also the area where we have most of our international players with all six of Steven Gerrard’s senior players regularly called up, however, Scott Arfield has sat out this round of games and will be a shoe-in to start against Aberdeen as a result.
At least the gaffer is now in a position to rotate the men in the engine room rather than having to rely on the same three all the time, players like Joe Aribo and Bongani Zungu can be afforded the time to recover given the distance they will have to travel, as long as the rest return fit and well.
Thankfully there isn’t any international football for a while after this break and we can get back to the main objective of the season – winning title number 55!