Steve Clarke has taken aim at Oli McBurnie for making public a private conversation between the pair after snubbing him from Scotland's World Cup squad.
The 18-goal Hull City striker was one of the players who could have laid claim to having a realistic chance of making the 26-man group for North America.
But he missed out, with the manager opting for Lyndon Dykes, Che Adams, Lawrence Shankland, George Hirst and Ross Stewart as his strikers.
McBurnie outscored most of them this past season, including Hirst and Stewart who play in the same league as him, the English Championship, and felt he had a shout of being included.
After being left out of the squad for friendlies against Japan and Ivory Coast, McBurnie detailed a conversation he had with Clarke in which he was informed the likes of Dykes were ahead of him in the pecking order.
Speaking yesterday, the Scotland manager said: “I thought that was a private conversation to be honest. He should not have gone to the media.
“I tend to stick with players I have had before. I trust them. They know what I expect from that and that is it.
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"It is just a natural selection process – natural in my head anyway, maybe not natural in everybody else’s.”
Stewart is included after winning two caps previously, the last coming against Republic of Ireland in 2022.
On the Southampton striker's inclusion, Clarke added: “Ross obviously was in my squad a few years ago and showed that he could come up to this level. He was good in the squad. And then he’s had a terrible run of injuries. It’s a good story.”
