Hearts star reacts to former team-mate John Souttar's Scotland squad recall

The centre-back was rewarded for some excellent performances to finish the campaign with a place back in Steve Clarke’s national team squad for the upcoming Euro 2024 qualifiers against Norway and Georgia.

Souttar missed the last two camps as he sat on the sidelines through injury. He sustained an ankle problem towards the end of his Hearts career which he tried to play through after initially making the move to Ibrox, but was shut down for over six months following an ignominious debut against Livingston in which he struggled.

After managing to get himself back in the team following his recovery in March, his form improved with some top-notch displays in wins over Aberdeen and Hibs and scoring in the 3-0 Old Firm victory over Celtic.

Gordon played alongside Souttar at Hearts for two years, though even they were punctuated by long spells of unavailability. In fact, they didn’t play together in a game until the April of Gordon’s debut season as the defender was recovering from successive Achilles injuries.

The goalkeeper, who himself is out of action for several months with a broken leg, hopes Souttar can now put his injury frustrations behind him and show his undoubted ability on a consistent basis for club and country.

“I’m delighted for him [to be recalled] as he’s been through some horrendous times with injuries in his career. He’s still relatively young too, to have gone through as much as he has,” said Gordon.

“He got his move to Rangers and when he played in his first game he was probably still not quite recovered from the injury he sustained at Hearts. He was just desperate to do well at a new club and didn’t want to be injured. He tried to get through that first few weeks and it didn’t work out for him. It’s been a long road back and that must have been difficult.

“He would have been sitting in the treatment room for months without feeling part of it, and not really getting to know his team-mates and how they play. That first pre-season is always vitally important at a new club and John didn’t really get that opportunity to cement his place in the team. But he’s come in for the tail end of the season and shown what he can do.

“He’s one of the best defenders in Scotland and has quite rightly got himself back in the squad.

“He gives us great distribution from the back. He has threaded balls for Rangers right through the middle of the park. We don’t have that many guys who can play those types of passes.

“He’s also a threat from set pieces. He got the goal against Celtic – albeit off a little deflection – but he can attack the ball, as he did for Scotland against Denmark too.

“He really is a complete centre-half and it’s great to see him back in the squad. If called upon against Norway I’m sure he’d do a good job.”

• Craig Gordon was speaking at Camstradden Primary, in Drumchapel, as part of the Scottish FA’s Week of Football. Pupils took part in a creative writing competition called When I Played For Scotland, as part of Learning Through Football - a Scottish FA programme designed to support teaching and learning through the context of the national game. It is used by pupils and school across Scotland.

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