defender

Motherwell right-back and Scotland cap Stephen O’Donnell recently said it was incumbent on all Scottish players to give national manager Steve Clarke “a headache” in the run-up to the World Cup.

Findlay and Halkett are two such players but Findlay has the advantage of having worked with Clarke at Kilmarnock.

He is also one cap better off than his club-mate, having made his sole international appearance in a 6-0 win over San Marino in 2019 under Clarke.

The national team head coach is fiercely loyal to players who have served him well and Grant Hanley, Jack Hendry, Scott McKenna, Souttar and Kieran Tierney would all appear to be ahead of Findlay in the queue.

“There’s a few lads maybe on the outside of that just looking in at the minute,” McInnes added. “Going into big tournaments, there’s always maybe one or two casualties for injury and you just never know.

“If you’re playing for a team at the top of the league then there’s always significant players within that. But likes are Stuart and Craig Halkett, Stephen Kingsley, Harry Milne, these boys, you just never know.”

And Findlay added: “Every professional football player, until the day they retire, wants to play for their country. It’s the highest honour you can get in a game.

“I know the manager well and there’s no surprise to me how well he’s done. As a Scotland supporter, I trust him implicitly to pick the squad that he thinks is the best.

“For me, the biggest thing for me this season was doing well at Hearts. Of course, it’d be a massive bonus and it’d be great to be involved in.”

Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Inter Milan and Atletico Madrid are among the European clubs to have shown an interest in signing Guehi on a free transfer, and he can sign a pre-contract agreement with an overseas club from this month.

“If you’re just valuing sports, everyone in the club will say Marc has to stay,” Glasner added. “The chairman will tell you the same. But it’s not one-dimensional. If you see the financial situation, it’s very important.

“If somebody comes, there will be a moment when the club says ‘now the financial issue is more important than the sports issue’.

“There will be a threshold where the club has to say it will happen – as long as Marc says ‘I want to leave’, because the final decision is always with the player.”

Guehi helped Palace finish 12th last season and win the FA Cup to qualify for Europe for the first time in the club’s history.

The Eagles then won the Community Shield in August, beating Premier League champions Liverpool on penalties, and are 14th in the table and through to the knockout phase play-offs in the Uefa Conference League.

“The chairman rejected many offers in the summer because we want to play a successful season and wanted to win the Community Shield,” Glasner added. “Therefore, Marc is important, and then he rejected the offer.

“The threshold at that time, the money we got offered was not above it. Maybe it was close, but it was not above.”