Kingsley and Watt deserve Scots call

APOLOGIES are offered to Stephen Kingsley, who is now guaranteed to suffer a catastrophic loss of form. The same sentiments are extended to Tony Watt. Hopefully neither is actually jinxed, cursed or even slightly thrown off kilter by the high praise bestowed upon them. Because it’s been incredibly heartening, from the perspective of the Premiership and our men’s national team, to see two homegrown performers playing so well. One of the great joys of being Scotland manager is never being short of advice on who to pick. And Steve Clarke will certainly have plenty of football folk pushing the claims of both Hearts defender Kingsley and Motherwell striker Watt. Rightly so. When you consider some of the left-sided defenders called into the national squad over recent seasons, a recall for Kingsley — winner of one cap five-and-a-half years ago — seems obvious. No, he’s not going to dislodge Kieran Tierney from the starting XI. But he’d be a morethan-adequate back-up, even without his knack for scoring with stunning free-kicks.

A recall for Watt, whose only senior appearance for Scotland was in March 2016, would obviously represent an almost irresistible tale of redemption. If he maintains not just his scoring rate but his performance levels, he should be in or around the reckoning come that World Cup play-off semi-final next spring. Strong, willing to run channels and with an eye for both the exquisite and the improvised goal, Watt deserves to be part of the conversation in an area where Scotland still lack depth.