New Scotland boss Steve Clarke wants Matt Ritchie to return to the international fray.
Ritchie asked not to be considered for international duty in November – with then boss Alex McLeish saying the reasons would be kept “private” but that he had not retired.
The United wing-back has played 16 times for Scotland but has often felt he hasn’t got a fair crack of the whip at international level. However after an excellent campaign for Newcastle, Clarke is looking to initiate talks with the United man to try and convince him to return to Scotland duty.
The former West Brom boss was appointed Scotland manager earlier this week as they look to recover from a poor start to Euro 2020 qualifying. They face an uphill battle to overturn Russia and Belgium in their qualifying group but are assured of a play-off place after winning their Nations League play-off.
Clarke said: “The door is open to everyone at this moment in time. If players have retired, then they have to unretire themselves. I won’t chasing down players who have retired.
“If a player has retired from international football then I respect that decision and if they want to come back to the fold they have to get in touch with myself or the SFA and say that they want to make themselves available.
“The ones who have maybe withdrawn from squads too easily, it’s down to me to have that conversation with them to sell my vision of what we’re going to do as a national team and how we’re going to approach this tournament.
“And, hopefully, we can get as many good players on board as possible.”
