Japan vs Scotland: Burley 'the most disappointed' by player withdrawals

Published on Friday 9 October 2009 14:23

SCOTLAND manager George Burley has expressed his disappointment at the number of withdrawals from his squad for the friendly match against Japan tomorrow.

There is a growing furore within the host nation over the absence of ten players from the squad originally named by Burley, and today the former Ipswich and Southampton boss apologised for bringing a weakened party to the Nissan Stadium in Yokohama.

But, despite the pointed questions being directed at Burley in the build-up to the game, the manager stressed there was little he could do and laid part of the blame for the situation on the rough and tumble of football in Britain.

"I'm an international manager and I think I'm the most disappointed because I've lost a number of very good players," said Burley.

"I've lost four players at the weekend because of injuries. Then we had four players who came and two of them trained but they were struggling with injuries. Two players couldn't train after the weekend.

"British football is very competitive and you get knocks. I'm the most disappointed, I want the strongest team but what it does it allows me to play some of the younger players and some who haven't been involved before.

"So we're very disappointed. I wanted to bring those 22 players that I picked originally but unfortunately I couldn't because of injury.

"We had an Old Firm game on the weekend and we all know they can be very bruising."

Follow the match live on scotsman.com from 11am tomorrow

Manchester United midfielder Darren Fletcher and Tottenham defender Alan Hutton pulled out of the trip at the last minute to join Scott Brown, Shaun Maloney, Danny Fox, Kevin Thomson, Steven Naismith, Robert Snodgrass and Garry O'Connor on the absentees list.

Those pull-outs were in addition to the loss of James McFadden, Ross McCormack, Chris Iwelumo, Kenny Miller, James Morrison, Kris Commons and Gary Naysmith who were not even named in the original squad.

The issue has threatened to turn the game into something of a sideshow with Japan manager Takeshi Okada now unlikely to field a full-strength team of his own against Scotland after seeing his side defeat Hong Kong in an AFC Asian Cup qualifying match on Thursday evening.

Not surprisingly, Burley was quick to claim the withdrawals would allow the new members of his squad to stake a claim for a place in the set-up for the long term as Scotland prepare for life after missing out on next year's World Cup finals.

"Unfortunately we have lost a number of players. We would have loved to have them available but it's an opportunity to have a look at players," he said.

"We all know what the Browns, the Fletchers, the McFaddens and your McManuses can do, so this will give other players the opportunity to show what they can do in international football.

"I apologise, we have lost a lot of players but I am the most disappointed fellow here, to be honest, because I wanted the squad that I picked but sometimes the way that it goes was that they were injured.

"We've got some very good young players who will play their first game so it's important for us to build again.

"We were disappointed to lose out to Holland in the last game of the group and if we had won that game I think we would have been in the play-offs so now we are looking forward to building on the last two performances, against Macedonia and Holland."

Burley later revealed almost half his starting line-up would be making their international debuts.

Scotland have seven uncapped players in Japan – Jamie Langfield, Lee Wallace, Graham Dorrans, Ross Wallace, Craig Conway, Stephen Hughes and Don Cowie.

"I'm sure there will be four or five debut caps for the starting line-up," Burley told BBC Scotland.

"You want players to have tests at international level to see what they can do. We have brought 18 players here, and most of them will play.

"It will be nice to see Steven Fletcher, whom I rate very highly, because he will be given the opportunity up front."