JOHN McGinlay went on standby for Scotland today, increasing doubts over Wanderers' Division One game at Oxford going ahead on Saturday.

As tomorrow night's game at Wolves at Molineux was finally given the green light, the call for McGinlay threw the weekend fixture plans into chaos.

Colin Todd now has no fewer than three players on standby as their countries prepare for World Cup qualifiers but the Burnden boss will have to wait at least another 24 hours before knowing whether he will lose them from his squad.

McGinlay has joined Nathan Blake (Wales) and Aidan Davison (Northern Ireland) who are waiting anxiously for calls from their respective national bosses.

The Oxford fixture will definitely go ahead without Gerry Taggart (Northern Ireland) and Gudni Bergsson (Iceland) but, if one of the standby trio is officially drafted, Wanderers will have the option to call for a postponement.

The situation appeared to be clearing yesterday when Wales boss Bobby Gould called up three Cardiff youngsters from his Under 21 squad ahead of Burnden top scorer Blake.

But there was more confusion when Gould admitted that was merely a manoeuvre to enable Cardiff to postpone their fixtures against Rochdale tonight and Chester on Saturday! Blake could possibly still get a call.

Then Scotland boss Craig Brown hinted that McGinlay could be drafted in for the World Cup qualifiers in Latvia on Saturday and Estonia next Wednesday.

The Scots, already without Duncan Ferguson and Gordon Durie, have doubts about Ally McCoist and Kevin Gallagher and McGinlay, capped nine times, is on standby with Crystal Palace striker Dougie Freedman.

Brown, waiting for checks on McCoist and Gallagher, said: "If I lose one or both I will bring in either Dougie Freedman or John McGinlay."

Wanderers are already resigned to being without Taggart at Wolves. Bergsson will take over at centre-back tomorrow night but will immediately fly out to team up with his international team-mates and misses the Oxford game.

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