Scotland captain Andrew Roberton has sprung to the defence of Cardiff City and Callum Paterson after the Bluebirds found themselves locked in a club versus country conflict.
Scotland could not pick Paterson in the embarrassing 3-0 Euro 2020 qualifying defeat to Kazakhstan because of fears the Bluebirds' joint top scorer could aggravate a knee problem on a plastic pitch.
Paterson has become a key figure under Neil Warnock who wants every player fully fit and available for a gruelling Premier League relegation run-in, which starts next weekend against Chelsea at home.
Bournemouth's Ryan Fraser also pulled out of the Kazakhstan match for similar injury concerns about the Astana Arena's plastic pitch.
The two men have come under fire north of the border, with former Scotland skipper Darren Fletcher amongst those taking aim at Paterson.
Others have also been highly critical.
"Yes, it's a slightly harder surface and it's not ideal, but at the end of the day it's not too dissimilar. For the sake of one game I would have liked to have seen these players make themselves available," said Fletcher.
"It's probably clubs getting involved and there's a lot of money involved in players getting injured. But at the same time, I think if a player wants to play for his country then he makes himself available."
However, current skipper Robertson, who missed the Kazakhstan game himself because of dental surgery, backed Paterson and Fraser.
He pointed out Paterson, who arrived at Cardiff following major knee surgery, simply couldn't play on the hard surface.
However, Paterson, Robertson and Fraser have each travelled to San Marino for Scotland's second qualifier on Sunday.
"People are going to have a pop about myself, Callum Paterson, Ryan Fraser and others who pulled out altogether, but we're trying our best to play for our country," said Robertson.
"For Ryan and Callum, it's impossible to play on AstroTurf. They haven't done it since they were 15 or 16 and when Cal's had such a bad knee injury in the past 18 months, it's medically impossible to turn out on that surface.
'People question whether we want to play for our country, but the three of us have gone from Edinburgh to Bologna, then two hours down to the team hotel to play 24 hours after, so there's no doubt we're committed to it.
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"The team that went out should have been good enough to beat Kazakhstan in my opinion, but we weren't at the races, simple as that. The fallout from it all is something we can't control."
