{"id":463984,"date":"2026-05-23T22:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T22:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/463984\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T22:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T22:30:08","slug":"oli-mcburnie-hulls-wembley-hero-but-the-striker-scotland-can-do-without","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/463984\/","title":{"rendered":"Oli McBurnie: Hull’s Wembley hero – but the striker Scotland can do without?"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was already scrutiny over Steve Clarke’s decision to omit Oli McBurnie from Scotland’s World Cup squad.<\/p>\n

After Saturday at Wembley, there might be much, much more.<\/p>\n

McBurnie was Hull City’s match-winning, promotion-winning hero – their new Dean Windass,<\/a> in less spectacular but arguably far more dramatic fashion.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old Scot pounced on a mistake by Middlesbrough goalkeeper Sol Brynn in the fifth minute of stoppage time to score the only goal of the Championship play-off final.<\/a><\/p>\n

It sent the Tigers back to English football’s top flight after a 10-year absence.<\/p>\n

His Wembley winner came just four days after the 19-goal forward was omitted from Clarke’s squad<\/a> for this summer’s global extravaganza in the USA, Canada and Mexico.<\/p>\n

So while he may not be going to the World Cup with Scotland, McBurnie is going to the Premier League with Hull.<\/p>\n

“I am quite pleased he is not going to the World Cup because now he can rest,” Tigers boss Sergej Jakirovic told BBC Sport.<\/p>\n

“He had a conversation with the head coach [Clarke] and it was explained to him what the situation was.<\/p>\n

“He scores goals – but this [selection] is the job of an international coach and I respect that.”<\/p>\n

After naming his squad, Clarke intimated the player maybe did not fit into the type of character he wanted in his squad.<\/p>\n

“You got the sense McBurnie could have scored a hat-trick in every game in the last two months of the season and Clarke would have been unmoved,” wrote BBC Scotland chief sports reporter Tom English.<\/a><\/p>\n

“Maybe he doesn’t fancy him as a footballer, maybe he doesn’t fancy him as a human being. Whatever.”<\/p>\n

Jakirovic, however, believes McBurnie is a positive influence in the Hull dressing room.<\/p>\n

“He is a leader – he is different and has so much experience in the Championship and creates fear in opponents,” the Croatian said of his former Swansea and Sheffield United forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was already scrutiny over Steve Clarke’s decision to omit Oli McBurnie from Scotland’s World Cup squad. After…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-463984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}