Rangers star left out, Aberdeen-Celtic 'disappointment', Kingsley told to keep believing - Scottish football news

We round up the top news stories this Thursday evening across Scottish football

Butland left out of England squad

Rangers goalkeeper Jack Butland will have to wait for his England recall after failing to make Gareth Southgate’s squad for the upcoming friendlies against Brazil and Belgium. It had been reported that the 31-year-old, who has been in excellent form for the Ibrox club this season, would be included for the double-header later this month. However, Southgate has decided to call up Jordan Pickford, Aaron Ramsdale and Sam Johnstone instead.

Clubs learn ticket fate

Jack Butland has been in excellent form this season for Rangers.

Aberdeen have reacted with disappointment over their Scottish Gas Scottish Cup semi-final ticket allocation after their offer to return any unsold tickets was declined. The Dons have been allocated 19,000 tickets for their Hampden meeting with Celtic while Hearts will say they will receive an identical initial allocation of 21,000 to their opponents, Rangers. Both of the last-four underdogs had sought a 50-50 split but according to Press Association, Aberdeen declined the deal Hearts accepted, to underwrite the cost of any unsold tickets. The Scottish Football Association announced that the Dons would face Celtic at 12.30pm on April 20 with Hearts playing Rangers at 3pm the following day. A statement from Aberdeen read: “The club requested the opportunity to sell up to 50 per cent of the tickets, with any unsold tickets by an agreed date being allocated to our opponents. Disappointingly, this has once again been declined based primarily on historical ticket sales at this stage of the competition.” Conversely, Hearts were “delighted” to share their news with supporters. “We had to make an extremely strong case for our argument, given the size of our opponents’ fanbase and historic semi-final ticket sales,” they said. “We are, therefore, extremely pleased to confirm that our proposition was accepted, and both Hearts and Rangers will be given an initial 21k allocation of tickets to sell to our respective supporters.”

Kingsley told not to give up on Scotland Euros squad

Steven Naismith believes Stephen Kingsley can still earn more Scotland caps even though the on-form defender did not get the nod to join three of his Hearts team-mates in the latest squad. Free-scoring captain Lawrence Shankland plus goalkeepers Zander Clark and Craig Gordon were included in Steve Clarke’s 25-man pool for the national team’s pre-European Championship friendly double-header against Netherlands and Northern Ireland later this month. Kingsley, who won the last of his two caps against Ukraine in September 2022, was also understood to have been in the thoughts of the Scotland boss after returning to his best form at Tynecastle this term, and Naismith said in his broadcast press conference: “The fact he’s being talked about as being part of the national set-up, he can be proud of that. You never know what can happen. He’s been in the set-up not so long ago after a long period out, and that’s what he’ll strive for. The whole Scotland squad has gone up a few notches so he can take credit from making the last squad he did (in 2022) because the competition at that point was really good. Yes, there’s a lot of left-sided players but that versatility Stephen’s got probably puts him in a slightly different bracket. It will be hard work for him to make the Euros squad but he will never give up.”

Killie to meet ‘fire with fire’ at St Mirren

Derek McInnes wants his Kilmarnock players and supporters to embrace the big-game atmosphere as they prepare to face St Mirren on Saturday. Killie are a point behind the fourth-placed Buddies in the cinch Premiership and both sides are looking to secure a top-six spot. Results elsewhere on Wednesday left Killie six points above seventh-placed Hibernian with four games remaining until the split and a race for European places awaits if they can maintain their form. McInnes said: “We have an opportunity to take on a team in and around us, there’s not much between us. They were aways a yardstick for us this season, we knew if we could replicate a wee bit of what St Mirren did last season in terms of points tally then that would probably get us in the top six. That’s where we are sitting roughly just now and we need to finish the job.”