Scotland have named Tyler Fletcher as the replacement for Billy Gilmour in their 26-man World Cup squad following a scan that confirmed the full extent of the Napoli star’s knee injury.
Steve Clarke was left devastated after Gilmour hobbled off at Hampden during Scotland’s 4-1 win over Curacao, with the scan revealing the damage was serious enough to rule him out entirely.
Fletcher, the 19-year-old Manchester United standout and son of Scotland icon Darren, earned his place after an eye-turning cameo appearance in the same match against Curacao.
Clarke faced a rapid decision-making challenge with the national team set to fly to the United States on Sunday for their first-ever World Cup tournament.
Fletcher ultimately edged out the three players who had been placed on the standby list to claim the final spot on the plane.
Lennon Miller, Andy Irving, and Connor Barron all missed out on the opportunity to participate in this summer’s marquee tournament.
Clarke provided an insight into his thinking following the blow of losing Gilmour and explained why Fletcher emerged as the frontrunner for the vacancy.
He said: “Good headache though. We have Connor Barron, Andy Irving, Lennon Miller and you can see for yourself how good young Tyler is. It will keep me awake tonight.”
Clarke added: “The three I mentioned are on standby. Tyler joined us this week and trained well this week so is a little bit closer than the other three.”
The Scotland manager also acknowledged the impression Fletcher had made on the entire squad and coaching setup during his short time in camp this week.
Clarke said: “Everybody’s impressed (with him), the players are impressed, the coaching staff are impressed.”
He also revealed he had considered throwing Fletcher on immediately after Gilmour went down, saying: “I actually thought about putting him on as Billy came off, but I just thought I’d have a little look to see how the game panned out before introducing him at half time.”
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