Burnley’s Scots duo Boyd and Arfield could be on verge of a call

Scottish players south of the border have long enjoyed a reputation for being hard workers.

Think Billy Bremner, think Stuart McCall, think Gordon Strachan. Three flame-haired bundles of perpetual motion to put up against any counterparts from England or abroad.

There have been exceptions there always are. But they prove the rule, and in this case it is a national trait for industriousness.

It is perhaps not a surprise, then, to find a Scot, George Boyd of Burnley, topping the stats for distance covered in English Premier League matches this season.

Nor, indeed, to find another, Scott Arfield, also of Burnley, not far behind him in fourth place.

What is arguably a little strange is that neither man is able to make it into the Scotland squad.

National manager Gordon Strachan has proved himself to be every bit as enthusiastic an advocate of work-rate as a coach as he was in his time as a player.

Scotland’s 2013 victory in Croatia over an opponent then ranked fourth best in the world was a masterclass in what can be achieved when a side give their all to make a plan pay off.

It came too late for that World Cup qualifying campaign, but was highly significant in terms of setting the tone for the very positive Euro 2016 campaign we are in the midst of right now.

In Zagreb, the midfield of Robert Snodgrass, James McArthur, James Morrison and Shaun Maloney never stopped grafting.

Maloney, asked later whether injury had been behind his substitution with 15 minutes to go, laughed and replied: “No, but I was on the point of passing out!”

So why are Boyd and Arfield’s noteworthy efforts in one of the most competitive Leagues in the world not enough to get them into Strachan’s squad?

The fast answer is that Boyd has already had a chance. The current boss gave him run-out against Serbia in a dead rubber of a World Cup qualifier in 2013.

In a 2-0 defeat that also saw the introduction of Liam Bridcutt and Jordan Rhodes, he did okay. But not much more than that and he was put back onto the ‘future projects’ pile.

Arfield, meanwhile, is a victim of circumstance, the circumstance being that Scotland have an embarrassment of riches in his position.

Scott Brown, Darren Fletcher, Morrison, McArthur, Maloney, Barry Bannan and, when fit, James Snodgrass can all legitimately consider themselves to have claims to the central midfield roles.

Former Scotland Under-21 skipper Stuart Armstrong, who has made a real impact at Celtic since completing his switch in the winter window, will surely come into contention if he continues his progress?

Don’t forget, either, Charlie Adam, who boasts 25 caps from previous campaigns and has the ability to produce the unexpected, like yesterday’s 60-yard wonder goal against Chelsea.

To be fair to Strachan, it is a topic he has been happy to discuss.

He has freely acknowledged the relative imbalance of his squad plus the difficulties it poses for players on the outside looking in.

Arfield, though, is entitled to be frustrated. At 26, he is at the peak of his career and playing regularly at the highest level.

As the Match of the Day analysts have highlighted on more than one occasion, he looks not like a player who is merely making up the numbers, but a class act.

Canada have been impressed enough to make noises about exploring his eligibility to play for them.

And his efforts are all the more noteworthy, given Burnley’s struggles this season. They are a bottom-three side who went into this weekend’s fixtures with the joint worst goal difference.

Those difficulties go some way to explaining the amount of ground Boyd and Arfield cover in games. Promoted last summer, the Clarets are going to be second best in terms of possession pretty much every week.

When they don’t have the ball, they are going to have to chase hard to try and win it back and Boyd, as a nominated frontman, is going to have chase harder than any. Again, though, no-one can excuse him of simply making up the numbers.

He has scored against champions Manchester City home and away. His winner at Turf Moor was a piece of sublime technique.

The problem is, perhaps, that Scotland don’t lack for competition up front, either.

Everton’s Steven Naismith doesn’t make the distance covered list, but he is in the Premier League’s top six for shot conversion rate, not far behind Harry Kane, the man-of-the-moment and, in fifth place, the top-ranked UK player.

It is also true that it is not just how much you run, but where you run that counts.

Celtic manager Ronny Deila, who prioritises work-rate as much as any Premiership manager, has been raving about Stuart Armstrong’s efforts in this respect.

In the end, though, for all the focus on new ways to analyse the game, the old ones remain every bit as important as they ever did. And in that respect the three goals netted by Steven Fletcher against Gibraltar were as important a number as any.

Had he not got on the mark against the Group D minnows, he would have been going into the countdown for Dublin without an international goal in six years. He hasn’t scored for his club, Sunderland, since November.

It is a situation Strachan could not have allowed to continue. The return of Jordan Rhodes, after a year-and-a-half in the cold, was not co-incidental.

George Boyd might not have been the very next name up on the rank. But he would not have been that far away either.

For this is one player, the stats illustrate, who can be relied on to come running when the call comes with Arfield not far behind.

Will Strachan call up one, or both, for the crunch tie against the Republic in June?

His plucking of Matt Ritchie out of nowhere recently show that he is not averse to the unexpected.