Scotland Men's Football Team

Andy Burke
BBC Sport Scotland Senior Reporter

Image source, SNS

John Souttar may yet leave Rangers in the short term, even though the transfer window has closed in Scotland.

The Scotland defender, 29, is under contract until next summer.

"I think he still can [make a contribution]," said Rangers manager Derek McInnes.

"The likelihood is that John's been told his long-term future would be best elsewhere.

"He still has good opportunities. There's still an opportunity to move. There's a couple of windows, a few windows still open across Europe and there is a few things looking possible for John.

"I don't want to speculate how much that is, but I think there one or two things that he's quite keen on and one or two things that's maybe gaining a wee bit of traction."

Souttar joined Rangers in 2022 and has made 132 appearances, scoring four times. He has 366 club games overall and has represented Scotland 24 times, being part of the squad that went to this year's World Cup.

And McInnes added: "There's still that possibility for John to go and get regular football and peace of mind.

"That might be the best option for him, but if he doesn't move and there isn't anything materialises then of course we honour the contract and he comes back into things."

Napoli expect Scotland midfielder Scott McTominay to return from heart surgery in mid-October. (Scotsman - subscription required, external)

Tuesday's Scottish gossip

Scotland midfielder Lewis Ferguson had agreed to join Rangers this summer, but the Ibrox club failed to put an offer to Bologna, according to father Derek, who does not think the transfer can be revived in January for the 27-year-old. (Open Goal, external)

Former Scotland head coach Steve Clarke has revealed he had to push the Scottish FA to agree a new contract shortly before the World Cup finals this summer because he felt the governing body was hedging its bets. (The Scotsman, external)

Read Saturday's Scottish Gossip in full.

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Scotland midfielder Lewis Ferguson had agreed to join Rangers this summer, but the Ibrox club failed to put an offer to Bologna, according to father Derek, who does not think the transfer can be revived in January for the 27-year-old. (Open Goal, external)

Besiktas failed to meet the £20m fee Rangers were bargaining on for Nicolas Raskin and manager Derek McInnes thinks the 25-year-old Belgium midfielder must now concentrate on playing well to win a big-money move in January. (Daily Record, external)

Rangers manager Derek McInnes has promised to reveal more about the future of John Souttar early next week after a transfer away from Ibrox failed to materialise for the 29-year-old Scotland centre-half. (The Herald, external)

Read Saturday's Scottish Gossip in full.

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Josh McPake "feels ready" for a Scotland call-up after an impressive start to life at Hearts.

The 25-year-old joined the Tynecastle club this summer having agreed a pre-contract back in January when he was still at St Johnstone and has forced his way into Wouter Vrancken's starting XI.

McPake set up teammate James Wilson for the opening goal in Thursday night's Edinburgh derby and scored one of his own as Hearts beat Hibernian 3-1.

New Scotland manager Sebastien Pocognoli was in the stands at Easter Road watching on as he prepares to select his squad for this month's Nations League matches against Slovenia, Switzerland, and North Macedonia.

"I do feel ready," McPake said when asked about a first international call-up for those games.

"When I was at St Johnstone, people would ask me all the time if I felt ready for the step up to Hearts, and I said 'yeah'.

"And I do feel like I'm ready for that step up, but it's not my decision to make.

"Hopefully performances like that [against Hibs] might help my case there. My goal was a massive one for everyone, I think.

"But I'm just taking it one game at a time at the moment. I've still got a good few games until the international break, so my full focus is on Hearts and things like that [Scotland] should come naturally."

Former national boss Gordon Strachan believes Scottish football needs a new way of thinking and questions whether young players express themselves and are brave on the ball. (Sun, external)

And ex-Scotland captain Paul Lambert has a "worry" for the game in his homeland. (National - subscription required, external)

New Celtic midfielder Oliver Sorenson, who is on loan from Parma, wants to apply the lessons he's learned from Scotland international and former Serie A opponent Scott McTominay, 29, of Napoli. (Record - subscription required, external)

Friday's Scottish gossip

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St Mirren manager Craig McLeish wants to see a homegrown player quota introduced to Scottish football.

The suggestion comes as the Scottish Football Association prepare to host discussions in St Andrews, which all 42 league clubs have been invited to attend, aimed at improving the prospects for homegrown talent in Scotland.

McLeish, who worked in St Mirren's academy and with the SFA as a development coach before taking on his role as Buddies boss, insists more youth involvement at club level will help the national team and improve the Scottish game overall.

"We have to put a quota in place for young players being involved in match day squads," McLeish said.

"Everything else they talk about might be good ideas, might need to rely on other people to make decisions on it. The only thing that's going to change is if we put the quotas in place.

"I've got the benefit in that I've come through the academy system here, worked with the youth national teams.

"I'm fed up of coaches, youth coaches, getting battered in this country, academies getting battered, youth national teams getting a bad rep.

"I've been part of it. We went away to Spain and beat them at under-16s, the under-17s have played against the likes of Italy and Portugal and competed against them. There's a lot of good work going on in this country.

"There is a lot of talented coaches, a lot of talented players but until we change the rules then it's always going to hit a brick wall at some point.

"You can go really extreme with it like Norway have. In Norway, I think 16 have to be homegrown, locally-trained, you can only have nine non-homegrown players in your matchday squad.

"I would go extreme with it. The argument will be that then it harms our clubs competing in Europe.

"But you only need to look at like Bodo/Glimt and progressing to like latter stages of the Champions League. They are able to do that with the restrictions that they've got in place.

"It's not going to happen overnight, it will take a bit of time and there might be a little bit of short-term pain, but you even see that we've got clubs going out of Europe right now with no restrictions in place.

"I think we all should strive to develop Scottish football as a whole and part of that is developing the national team and it's the only way I see any sort of difference being made."

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Scotland forward Lewis Morgan has joined his fourth Major League Soccer club after making the move to Toronto from San Diego.

The 29-year-old, who won the last of his seven caps in 2024, has previously played for Inter Miami and Red Bull New York.

"He has established himself as an impactful attacker in the Eastern Conference over the past several seasons," said Toronto FC general manager Jason Hernandez.

"His flexibility to play across multiple positions in the attack will be a valuable quality for our group moving forward."

Meanwhile, Torino have reached agreement with Everton to sign Scotland right-back Nathan Patterson, 24. (David Ornstein, external)

Tuesday's Scottish gossip

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Scotland star John McGinn says he was "desperate" to join Celtic in the summer of 2018 before eventually leaving Hibernian for Aston Villa.

Midfielder McGinn has established himself as a key Premier League figure for Villa, becoming club captain and winning the Europa League last season, leaving Celtic to rue what might have been.

The 31-year-old grew up as a Celtic supporter and his grandfather Jack was the club's chairman from 1986 to 1991.

Celtic had multiple bids turned down by Hibs and McGinn believes there was a degree of complacency in the way the Parkhead club approached the transfer.

"If he wasn't my grandpa and I wasn't a Celtic fan, I probably would be a Celtic player," McGinn told The Overlap podcast., external

"They felt because I was a Celtic fan, it would just happen. Nobody else would come in and Hibs would crumble.

"Hibs were amazing. They said 'We're not going to stand in your way, but they need to pay us what you're worth.'

"I gave them my word that I'd wait until they pay what I worth and it never got there. It was two or three million.

"They actually phoned my grandpa to try to influence me, but he had a good relationship with both sides. He trusted me and my agent and he said 'It's nothing to do with me, if you've got the money, pay the money.'

"It went on for months. I met Brendan [Rodgers]. I was desperate to go to Celtic."