Burley won't ask too much of Old Firm stars on his Scotland debut

By PETER JARDINE

Last updated at 17:47 26 February 2008

New Scotland boss George Burley admitted yesterday that he might be prepared to compromise on his Hampden debut because of Old Firm fixture chaos and the SPL's tense title fight.

Alex McLeish's successor takes charge of the national side for the first time when Croatia come to Glasgow on Wednesday, March 26 but the game falls immediately before an Old Firm match at Ibrox.

And Burley is inclined to go easy on over-worked men like rival captains Stephen McManus and Barry Ferguson. The Scotland boss plans to talk with Celtic manager Gordon Strachan and Rangers boss Walter Smith before naming his squad for the Croatia game.

The consequence could be senior players not taking part for the full 90 minutes, with the likes of David Weir, Scott Brown, Gary Caldwell, Paul Hartley, Kris Boyd and Lee McCulloch also set to be in the squad.

Burley once fell foul of Northern Ireland while he was in charge of Southampton but confessed yesterday that it is 'impractical' for Scotland to consider sanctions against clubs.

"Of course, I will speak to the Old Firm bosses before we play Croatia," said Burley. "Communication is very important and I appreciate it has been a hectic schedule for two or three reasons.

"It has been especially hard for the Old Firm and i t' s going to be congested until the end of the season. I want a strong squad and I want the right result against Croatia. It's important to me as it's my first match in charge but I will take everything into consideration and will speak to the club managers and make a decision from there.

"Would I take players off early? It's something I would look at. I'm sure there will be one or two players with knocks or feeling the stress of a heavy schedule. I'll be looking to try to win the game with Croatia as we will only have two or three matches before the World Cup campaign starts."

Burley held a get-together earlier this month to meet his new charges but proposed friendlies against Argentina at Hampden, England at Wembley and Belgium in Glasgow have all collapsed.

So the Croatia game is his only confirmed friendly and Burley wants to get off to a good start in his first match at the helm. However, he is also keen to build strong relationships with club managers.

He added: "The most important thing for me is to get the players together.'We'll speak to the managers and assess players from the point of view of what will be best for them. I had one problem while I was at Southampton and felt very bad about it.

"It wasn't right and I feel it's important to have a relationship with club managers where trust is the key."

Burley explained that St Mary's defender Chris Baird missed a club match and pulled out of the Northern Ireland squad for a game with Sweden last year.

However, when he was then scheduled to play for Southampton the following weekend, the Irish took action.

"Chris wasn't fit to play for Northern Ireland in the midweek but was fit to play for us on the Saturday," recalled Burley. "They invoked the six-day rule so he couldn't play for us. I was disappointed with that. I have to say, in British football, it is impractical to apply the FIFA rules - even though that week for the Croatia game is an international week."

Alan Hutton and Scott Brown missed a vital Euro 2008 qualifier against Georgia last year, yet both played in the season's first Rangers v Celtic showdown at Ibrox in October three days later.