Scotland have been rocked by five withdrawals from their squad that will face Northern Ireland tonight. As we reported earlier in the week Celtic duo Gary Caldwell and Paul Hartley, Cardiff’s Kevin McNaughton and Gavin Rae as well as Burnley defender Callum Davidson are all out injured. In their place Michael Stewart of Hearts, David Weir of Rangers and Graham Alexander of Burnley have been called up. Skipper Barry Ferguson is already out through injury, along with former Rangers colleague Alan Hutton now at Tottenham Hotspur.

Falkirk’s Darren Barr and Rangers duo Steven Whittaker and Kevin Thomson could be in line to win their first caps for Scotland, as well as surprise inclusion Kris Commons of Derby County. The next generation of Scotland strikers David Clarkson and Steven Fletcher will be looking to continue to prove their worth at international level, however they will have to wait for their turn as James McFadden and Kenny Miller are set to lead Scotland out in attack.

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Scotzine.com are now recruiting for sections within the site. Are you a talented writer? as well as a diehard football fanatic? then Scotzine wants you. Whether your expertise or interest is in Europe, England, Scotland, World Football or the Historical/Statistical side of the game we need you. Also we are on the look out for a talented designer/illustrator to work with us in creating a number of exclusive T-Shirt ranges to sell via the site. So look at the list of positions available now and email us your profile, some samples of your work and links to your work and we will get back to you as soon as we can. Take a look at our Write for Us section to get a few pointers on what we are looking for etc.

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Hamilton manager Billy Reid has offered former Celtic striker John Hartson, a coaching role at New Douglas Park. Hartson hung up his boots in January after being released by English Championship side West Brom, and Reid hopes that he can tempt Hartson back into the game and shy away from punditry  to a certain extent. The 33 year old has held talks with Accies about a part time role working with the club’s strikers. Although Accies have made an excellent start to the new season with two wins out of two, Reid feels Hartson will give his strikers more potency in attack. Reid commented, “He has vast experience and it would be great to bring in someone of his calibre. His work and family commitments would restrict it to one day a week but the young players will learn a lot. Hopefully they can do some finishing exercises and benefit from a guy whose goal record and movement was fantastic. I think he feels this is the right place for him as we have so many good youngsters.”

The Daily Record and that bastion of ‘Factual’ reporting Hugh Keevins, have reported that Sir David Murray was hours away from selling Rangers. Seemingly the Rangers Chairman was in talks with a group of businessmen a year ago with legal documents for the sale of the club drawn up. However Murray did a u-turn on selling up as he felt that Rangers would not be falling into the right hands.

He said: “We were all ready to go. Everything was pretty much agreed until I said, ‘Look gentleman, how are you going to run this club?’ I’m sitting there with all the legal documents in front of me and they say, ‘We’ll carve this up and we’ll sell that off’. I said, ‘Enough, we’re not doing the deal’ and walked out. It wasn’t for Rangers because they didn’t want to take the club forward in a football way. They saw property angles.”

Now Murray has been accused of being an asset stripper since the defeat to Kaunas in the Champions League to the sale of Carlos Cuellar. However Murray has released information on the amount of money he has spent under Walter Smith’s reign. A Total of £25 million was spend on transfers and signing on fees has brought in 25 players - so overall he has spent £1 million per player.

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With Monday nights reverting to SPL Highlights on BBC 1 and the demise of Scotsport on rival channel STV, Scotzine.com thought it would launch a new Monday night service that could inform all the fans about the goings on in Scotland and England, rather than having to wait for the rags in the morning. We are looking out for fans to contribute to this new weekly slot so get emailing now on the week’s fixtures, upcoming ties, potential transfers and major talking points - we rely on fan contributions and comments.

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In the First Division the game of the day was at McDiarmid Park as Dunfermline continued their fabulous win record against St. Johnstone (at McDiarmid Park) as they ran out 3-0 winners. Meanwhile in the Second East Fife were humbled by Glasgow side Queen’s Park, East Fife are now starting to go from title contenders to relegation battlers in the matter of three games. Meanwhile in the Third new boys Annan Athletic has secured another win to stretch their lead at the top of the table with a 2-1 victory over East Stirlingshire, will Annan continue their fine form and acheive promotion in their first season? keep up to date with all the goings on with Scotzine.com.

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We are already into the second week of the SPL and once again the referees have came under fire. After Eddie Smith gave a Penalty to Celtic which was deemed controversial in some eyes, Celtic were lucky not to have a penalty awarded against them as Charlie Richmond deemed a challenge on Roy O’Donovan by Gary Caldwell legal. While Rangers were awarded an injury time spot kick moments after Stuart Dougal failed to award a penalty to Hearst after Gers new boy Bougherra handled the ball inside the box. Hibernian finally found their scoring touch as they beat Falkir, while SPL new boys Hamilton continued their fine start to the season with a 1-0 win against Inverness Caley Thistle. St. Mirren and Kilmarnock fought out a goalless draw and Aberdeen stole all three points against Motherwell with a goal five minutes from time. It was mixed results for the Old Firm as Rangers won 2-0 against Hearts and Celtic threw away two points in the final ten minutes to give Dundee United their first point of the season and a share of the spoils.

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In a match that started with high expectations from both sets of fans, it was the blue half of Glasgow who went home happier than their Edinburgh counterparts after a 2-0 win. It was a strange game, with bursts of good football from both sides being rudely interrupted with periods of petty fouling that slowed the game down

Rangers started the game well, playing with two strikers - Velicka and Boyd - and a showing a passing game the home fans haven’t witnessed in a few years. In his debut, the Portuguese playmaker Pedro Mendes, was simply outstanding. He was at the heart of every good Rangers move, always available and very rarely giving the ball away. His ability to change the flow of the game with a simple diagonal pass or flick, was a delight to behold, and his link up with Kevin Thomson was promising for the future.

However, Rangers didn’t have it all their own way - far from it - and Hearts themselves played some nice football with Kingston and Stewart imposing themselves on the Rangers midfield for short periods, especially in the first half.

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