Contrary to what you may have read, it turns out that Oli McBurnie is heading to the USA this summer after all.
There will be no need for the striker to pack his boots, though. There’s been no volte face by Steve Clarke on the 26-men he believes are best equipped to represent Scotland at the World Cup.
Together with the rest of his victorious Hull City team-mates, McBurnie is heading for Las Vegas, a blow out under the neon lights their reward from owner Acun Ilicali for winning their play-off final against Middlesbrough.
The 29-year-old can surely leave his wallet behind. His instinctive finish in the 94th minute proved to be the difference.
The received wisdom is that the play-off final for the Premier League is worth £200million these days, but no one can say for sure.
If the Tigers survive and prosper back in the topflight, a la Bournemouth, that goal might be the gateway to untold riches.
Hull Ciy striker Oli McBurnie celebrates after scoring the winning goal in the play-off final
Its timing was extraordinary. Four days previously, Clarke had been asked about the rationale behind omitting a player with 18 goals in 41 games from his squad. Better make that 19 in 42.
While clearly the manager has a cut-off point and expressed sympathy with those who’d missed out on the back of fine seasons, it was legitimate to question why McBurnie had been left out.
His goal return was vastly superior to the 11 both George Hirst and Ross Stewart bagged with Ipswich and Southampton, respectively.
It was infinitely better than the five Lyndon Dykes managed in the same division across spells with Birmingham and Charlton. Che Adams only managed eight with Torino, albeit in Serie A.
Clarke’s willingness to select Stewart for the first time in four years was widely praised on the basis that he’s a man in form.
So, why not McBurnie? If we’re looking for men with a spring in their step to get stuck into Haiti, then the case for him is certainly strong.
Yet, instead of meeting up with the rest of the Scotland players as they prepare for a farewell game against Curaçao, he’ll probably be taking a seat at a poker table in Nevada. You can understand why many believe Clarke has missed a trick.
Oli McBurnie is a hero for Hull City but is not part of Steve Clarke’s World Cup plans
The matter is even more intriguing when one considers the reason the manager gave for picking five strikers – one more than anticipated.
He admitted to being encouraged by playing two forwards in the opening qualifier in Denmark. He’s tempted to follow suit at the World Cup – presumably in the opening game against the group outsiders.
McBurnie might well have made a decent foil for Lawrence Shankland – or at last have been an option to replace Dykes or Stewart in the stewing heat of Boston. We shall never know, of course.
The same applies to the true reason why Clarke has decided to overlook the player, but you do suspect that there’s an element of a personality clash to the whole thing.
Before the subject of strikers was raised last week, the manager explained the reasons why Liam Kelly was America-bound, despite only making three appearances for Rangers this season.
‘He is good around the squad,’ Clarke explained of the keeper.
It was an interesting point, one which reminded you that harmony and a club spirit have been so key to what the manager has achieved since 2019.
On Sunday, Scotland will travel to Florida for a training camp then head to New York for the final friendly against Bolivia before alighting at their base in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Clarke has picked three Championship strikers who have scored fewer goals than McBurnie this season
They’ll be in Boston twice to face Haiti and Morocco, Miami for the Brazil game then back to Charlotte.
Even if that’s the end of the road, it’s still four weeks living cheek by jowl. Inevitably, some players won’t kick a ball while others will be peripheral. Clarke has enough on his plate without seeing long faces.
No one who has ever met McBurnie would earmark him as a bad apple. He’s bubbly and engaging, opinionated and something of an extrovert.
But he can be, as one former team-mate succinctly put it, high maintenance. And in the context of an international tournament, that can count against you.
Those who believe Clarke is still resentful for McBurnie’s past misdemeanours have selective memories.
Back in 2019, shortly after completing a £20m move from Swansea to Sheffield United, a clip emerged on social media of him telling then team-mate John Fleck that he hoped he wasn’t called up by Clarke because the set-up was s***.
‘My stupid mouth ran away from me,’ he ruefully reflected.
The Leeds-born player got a rollicking from his fiercely patriotic Scottish father Neil but was given the benefit of the doubt by the very man who he’d publicly insulted.
It’s easy to forget that, under Clarke, McBurnie featured as substitute a year later on that famous night in Serbia as Scotland ended a generational wait to qualify for the Euro 2020.
He then played against Slovakia and Israel in the Nations League and in a World Cup qualifier against the Faroe Islands in March 2021.
He was set to make the squad for the Covid delayed Euros until he broke a bone in his foot.
He managed just one goal for the Blades the following season, 15 strikes in 2022-23 as they won promotion, but just six on their return to the Premier League. That meant he was never really in the conversation for Euro 2024.
Oli McBurnie has yet to score in 16 appearances for Scotland
Then came five goals for La Liga strugglers Las Palmas a year back. His 19-goal haul with the Tigers in the term just finished was his best return since the 24 he managed with Swansea in 2018-19.
It presented a compelling case for a return to the international fold. And for Clarke’s many critics, McBurnie’s exclusion has been another stick to beat him with.
Cutting through the recency bias, though, one statistic blows a gargantuan hole in the argument of those who feels a gross injustice has been served; In 16 appearances for Scotland, he doesn’t have a single goal to his name.
So, this has little to do with a manager just not fancying the cut of his jib. The reality is that McBurnie has had multiple opportunities to showcase his credentials on the international stage and has never taken one.
If a lack of goals proves to be Scotland’s undoing next month, those who will inevitably chastise the manager for the striker’s absence will do well to remember that.
