\n<\/p>\n
Having already lost Scotland striker Lawrence Shankland until April with a hamstring injury, Heart of Midlothian head coach Derek McInnes has also all-but ruled Craig Gordon out of Japan’s visit to Hampden on 28 March and the match against Ivory Coast at Everton’s new Hill Dickinson Stadium three days later.<\/p>\n
The 43-year-old goalkeeper has already missed the Scottish Premiership leaders’ latest six matches with a shoulder injury. <\/p>\n
John McGinn is also doubtful, although the Aston Villa midfielder said last week that he is two or three weeks away from a return from a knee injury picked up on 18 January that required surgery and had the 31-year-old initially fearing for his place at this summer’s World Cup finals.<\/p>\n
Fellow midfielder Scott McTominay picked up an injury in Napoli’s win over Genoa on 7 February and, although he said last week he had an outside chance of playing against Hellas Verona, was absent for a fourth consecutive match.<\/p>\n
However, Billy Gilmour made his second substitute appearance since picking up a groin injury in November as the midfielder helped Napoli win 2-1.<\/p>\n
Romelu Lukaku held off the attentions of Scotland striker Kieron Bowie, making his fourth start for the hosts, to score the late winner – the first time they have won this season with McTominay absent.<\/p>\n
McTominay could make his club squad on Friday at home to Torino, for whom fellow 29-year-old Che Adams might also return after a two-game absence with a calf strain.<\/p>\n
The striker had been passed fit for Sunday’s 2-0 win over Lazio but did not make the match-day squad.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Derby County right-back Max Johnston is expected to return in mid-March after four months out with a hamstring injury but might not be match fit in time for the Scotland friendlies.<\/p>\n
However, defender Ross McCrorie returned to the Bristol City side that lost to Watford at the weekend after three games out with concussion.<\/p>\n
Centre-half Grant Hanley is expected to return to action this week after missing five games for Hibernian.<\/p>\n
Rangers midfielder Connor Barron, who has been out with a knee injury since early January, is expected back this month.<\/p>\n
Goalkeeper Angus Gunn has at least made the Nottingham Forest bench since recovering from November’s knee ligament injury, but his lack of game time is another worry for Clarke.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Having already lost Scotland striker Lawrence Shankland until April with a hamstring injury, Heart of Midlothian head coach Derek McInnes has also all-but ruled Craig Gordon out of Japan’s visit to Hampden on 28 March and the match against Ivory Coast at Everton’s new Hill Dickinson Stadium three days later. The 43-year-old goalkeeper has already<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9598,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}