STEVE Clarke has revealed that he is hopeful that Aaron Hickey will be available for selection for Scotland’s opening World Cup qualifiers against Denmark and Belarus away in September.
The Brentford player was exceptional for the national team at right wing-back during a hugely successful Euro 2024 qualifying campaign and helped his country to record wins over Cyprus, Georgia, Norway and Spain.
However, the former Hearts kid has been sidelined with a severe hamstring injury which has required two surgeries since the October of 2023.
But Clarke, who yesterday recalled Everton defender Nathan Patterson to his squad for the friendlies against Iceland and Liechtenstein next month, is optimistic that the 22-year-old will be back in action at the start of the 2025/26 campaign.
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“Nathan has had a tough time down at Everton,” he said. “He hadn’t been playing regularly and has had injury issues. He’s got back in, but he’s been a little bit in and out.
“But we know he’s a good player because we’ve had him in the squad before. He’s done good things for us. We have Tony Ralston, who has never let us down, so I keep Tony in the squad.
“And I want to have a look at young Max Johnston who’s had a really good season at his club, Sturm Graz. He’s picking up experience all the time, Max. He’s played Champions League football this year so this is a chance to have a look any him.
“But just get Nathan back involved is good. It shows there is competition in that position. We have Aaron Hickey too, who is coming off the back of a really long and difficult injury. He was close to selection, but not close to playing.
“Having been out so long, he’s making his way back with the under-21s and getting some minutes on the pitch. Aaron needs to have a good pre-season and hopefully he can be available for the autumn games.”
“When you’ve had an injury if that nature, and it’s taken that length of time to come back, sometimes you have to take it really slowly. Hopefully he can be involved in the autumn games. But that will be determined by how he does at his club over the pre-season.”
Meanwhile, Clarke has praised his Scotland assistant John Carver for keeping Lechia Gdansk in the top flight in Poland and getting shortlisted for the Manager of the Year award in the process.
He expressed hope the Englishman, who has been linked with the vacancy at Kilmarnock, will be able to continue with the national side next season.
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“John has been brilliant for me and for the national team,” he said. “He's very loyal to me. He's very enthusiastic about what he does here. But he’s done a fabulous job in Gdansk. "He's taken them from the bottom of the table to safety with a couple of games to spare, so he deserves to be nominated for Manager of the Year. I hope he gets it. We'll never hear the end of it, but I hope he gets it.
“It'll be nice to catch up with him face-to-face in a couple of weeks. Then we'll see what his next step is after that. I would hope that he'd be able to continue. But until we find out what his future is and what he's going to do next I'd reserve judgement.”
