Aaron Hickey ‘good to go’ but Scotland will take care – Steve Clarke

Scotland head coach Steve Clarke promised to look after Aaron Hickey after the Brentford defender returned to the squad following almost two years out.

The versatile full-back has returned to action from the bench in Brentford’s opening two Premier League games following major hamstring problems.

The 23-year-old last played for Scotland in a 2-0 defeat by Spain in Seville in October 2023, two weeks before he first suffered the injury.

Hickey made 14 international appearances, mostly at right-back, before his lengthy absence but Clarke will be mindful of his staged comeback for next month’s World Cup qualifiers against Denmark and Belarus.

“He’s good to go,” Clarke said. “Whether he’s good to go 90 minutes over two games is a different conversation. We’ll manage him.

“He’s a big player for us and a big player in the squad. It’s up to everybody to manage him properly. We’ll do that.

“He’s been a long time out injured, and it was a difficult recovery process for him. It’s good to have him back in the squad.”

Clarke’s squad features goalkeepers Angus Gunn, Zander Clark and Liam Kelly, all of whom missed June friendlies against Iceland and Liechtenstein through injury – or in Gunn’s case, all but the opening stages of the first game.

Ben Gannon-Doak, Lyndon Dykes, Kenny McLean and Ryan Christie also return from injury while Lennon Miller and Kieron Bowie retain their places after making their debuts in June. Blackburn defender Dom Hyam is among Clarke’s centre-back options.

Gannon-Doak made a huge impact when he made his international breakthrough during last year’s Nations League campaign and the 19-year-old returns to the squad on the back of a move from Liverpool to Bournemouth.

Clarke said: “He has to play, he has to go there, he has to keep his standards high, he has to do well when he plays.

“Obviously for us it’s nice to have him back in the squad because he gives us something a little bit different to the players that we have. It gives us another option.

“We’ve shown that we can play different systems with Ben, different systems without Ben and that’s what we’ll try and do over the six games.”

There is no room for a number of players who were involved in the June friendlies, including goalkeepers Cieran Slicker, Robby McCrorie and Ross Doohan, full-backs Josh Doig and Nathan Patterson, midfielders Connor Barron and Andy Irving and strikers Tommy Conway and James Wilson.

Clarke said: “It was particularly difficult this time, I think because I opened the squad up a little bit in the summer with some more younger ones just to give them a taste.

“From the summer camp, only Kieron and Lennon have stayed in and around the scene. The rest of the boys have caught my eye.

“I feel a little bit sorry for Tommy Conway, but I’ve got Lyndon Dykes back fit. I just feel that Lyndon’s experience can give us a little bit more up front, certainly for these two away games. But Tommy’s another one that we shouldn’t forget about in the future.

“When I look at that squad, it’s got a lot of good experience in it, players that know how to qualify for major tournaments and I’m hopeful we can do that again.”

Scotland open their campaign in Copenhagen on September 5 before facing Belarus behind closed doors in Hungary three days later.