Harvey Barnes has refused to shut the door on switching his international allegiances from England to Scotland.
The Newcastle United attacker is eligible to play for Steve Clarke's side.
He has one cap to his name for the country of his birth, England, but this was in a brief cameo three years ago against Wales.
The 26-year-old still has ambitions on performing well enough for his club to force his way into the England set-up, however, he pointed out that he's very much mindful that Scotland could be a plausible back up option.
He told The Times: “Well I’m still eligible to play for Scotland. There’s been one or two conversations, but there’s not been too much detail into that.
"To be honest, I haven’t really brought it in as part of my thought process yet. It’s not really been a serious conversation, so it’s not something I’ve really thought too much on. But I know I am still eligible to play for Scotland.”
Asked if an international career with England didn't occur, he added: “Then I’d still be eligible to play for Scotland.”
The winger was then all smiles when asked if he liked the sound of 'Harvey McBarnes'.
He said: “It’s something I haven’t really thought about. And I especially have been out of the picture for England for a while now, the main focus is to get back, first of all playing for Newcastle, and then see what happens.
Read more:
Meanwhile, Willie Collum has pledged to improve communication and transparency in his new role as the Scottish FA’s head of refereeing operations, as well as improving some interpretations of rules – most notably, handball – that had infuriated players, managers and supporters last season.
In fairness to him, it appears he has got off to a good start on all counts.
Collum has spent a fair portion of his opening weeks in the position engaging with various stakeholders in the game, taking on feedback from the clubs and subsequently outlining to the media where we can expect to see changes in how referees are interpreting certain situations.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel