Leigh Griffiths snubbed an olive branch from Alex McLeish after accusing the Scotland manager of kicking him in the teeth.
The Celtic striker was named in McLeish’s latest 24-man squad yesterday ahead of this month’s Nations League showdown with Israel and a Hampden friendly with Portugal.
The 28-year-old was relegated to the bench last time out as Steven Naismith got Scotland’s campaign off to a flyer with a man of the match display in a 2-0 win over Albania.
McLeish hailed Naismith’s performance on the night and hinted that the Hearts man would keep the shirt for the trip to Haifa - sparking an angry public reaction from Griffiths a few days later.
McLeish revealed yesterday that he has since attempted to make contact with Griffiths to clear the air only for his phonecall to be ignored and unreturned.
The manager moved to defuse any potential row by insisting Griffiths can still blast his way back into the starting line-up. But he admitted: “I haven’t spoke to Leigh since the last game. I tried to call him, but he blanked me. I’ll see him when he comes here.”
Griffiths netted in three consecutive matches for Celtic after the last international break and McLeish is hoping he brings that hot streak into the national fold.
He went on: “You’ve always got to prove yourself. I didn’t say to anybody after the last international ‘you’ll definitely be playing in the next game’.
“You give yourself a chance and that’s all you can ask for. What I saw in Leigh’s final sentence was ‘it is up to us to prove that we’re good enough’, and then he goes out and bangs in three goals.
“That’s great, that’s the kind of positivity we’re looking for and the type of reaction. We want to see that kind of Scottish mentality coming to the fore.
“Naisy has been in great form, and Leigh has hit back with three goals and started in the Celtic team in the last four games. It’s nice to see him taking up that challenge.”
McLeish is also keeping a close eye on the situation surrounding Fulham's Tom Cairney who has been linked with a defection to the England senior set-up.
Curiously, Cairney was not named in yesterday’s squad with McLeish claiming his club requested that the midfielder be allowed to sit this one out after returning from a six-week injury lay off.
When asked if he suspected something more sinister behind Cairney’s call off McLeish said: “I don’t know. He has been injured for a considerable period - five weeks or so. We did know that he was a bit rusty, not having played that amount of time.
"The England thing? I guess we are vulnerable in that situation but I didn’t see any indication Tom had a hankering to play for England. He seemed happy with the group any time he came away with Scotland.
“I guess you would want people to be totally committed to the cause and I think Tom Cairney is.
“I looked Scott McTominay in the eye and asked if he was committed to us. I would do the same with Tom if it came to it.
“At the moment I am more focussed on the guys in the squad. That moment with Tom can come when we get the double header over. I would rather the story was about the guys in the squad.”
McLeish has also resisted the temptation to draft in Hibs winger Martin Boyle despite possible interest in the player from Australia.
He said: “Martin Boyle is a guy who has been in good form for Hibs over a period of time and I’ve considered him. We tried to take him on the South American tour, but he was injured.
“At the moment I am pretty rich in that position and it would be difficult to get Martin in ahead of guys who are already in that squad.”
A win against Israel on the back of that win over Albania would fire Scotland towards a potential play-off place for Euro 2020.
And McLeish added: “It’s never easy to go away from home but we go with a bit of confidence from the Albania game. We want be as positive as we can be away from home. I’m not saying we open ourselves up but we want to still play at a tempo that we feel this group of players can give us.”
