Flying Scot! McGinlay justifies Todd's faith in him

First to call was Bobby Gould, drafting Wanderers' nine-goal top scorer Blake into the Wales squad for tomorrow's Group 7 qualifier in Cardiff.

Then, as arrangements were being made to postpone the Oxford game, Scotland boss Craig Brown rang to ask for McGinlay.

A member of the Scotland coaching staff had seen his two-goal heroics at Wolves the previous night and, on his recommendation, Brown had no hestitation in calling the Burnden hero into his squad for the Group 4 games in Latvia and Estonia.

Todd resisted the temptation to say "I told you so!" but he had recommended both players to their national managers and sees the resulting call-ups as fully justified on the strength of their performances and their reputations.

Not surprising in Blake's case, considering his nine-goal haul, but there were one or two eyebrows raised when the Burnden boss continued to profess his faith in McGinlay.

Until his Molineux double, the 32-year-old Scot had scored just three goals in 11 games. But he wasn't worrying about that, nor was Todd.

The manager said: "People have been saying he's not been scoring but I've stuck by him because he's he's been working hard. He hadn't been in the right place at the right time but that was nothing to do with him.

"We saw on Wednesday that, when the chances fall to him, he can stick them away. He fully deserves his call and so does Nathan. They only need the service and they'll score goals. I know that."

McGinlay reckons the partnership is flourishing. "Obviously there'll be times when we'll stumble but the combination is getting better.

"Our understanding is developing the more we play together. There's a lot of hard graft to be done up there in the attack and we are sharing the workload.

"Things are going well and we just want it to continue."

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