GORDON STRACHAN will be backing Celtic in the Champions League – to help Scotland’s World Cup Finals bid!
The international boss is hoping there will be a spin-off if his old club do well in Europe’s premier tournament.
And he will be looking for the likes of Aberdeen and Hibs to progress in the Europa competition, too.
Strachan believes his squad are capable of reaching the Russian Finals two years from now, but is concerned, from the current Scotland set-up, only the Celtic players in recent times have had even limited European experience.
He said: “The players give me confidence, as does the backing we get from the country. We do need to pull out a big result away from home in our group.
“But we have only got four players in the squad who are playing in the Premier League and it’s not the top teams. We know that. It would be wrong to say they were in the top sides.
“In the squad at the moment (for the friendlies against Italy and France) we have nobody who played in Europe. That is worrying and it is why I hoped leaving the players out who will be going for Europe next season would help them because if I have players playing in Europe then it helps us.
“It’s unfortunate that we are taking players from Championship clubs. To go from there to playing against the best players in the world! It says something that we don’t know the squad until the English Championship play-off is done.”
