Why Gordon Smith does not expect many Tartan stars to cross Brighton and Hove Albion's path next term

The United defence Smith soared above to nod the Seagulls ahead contained Gordon McQueen and Arthur Albiston.

The graceful striker, dubbed “the Trevor Brooking of Scottish football” by the manager that signed him, Alan Mullery, had tenacious midfield compatriot Neil McNab as a team-mate for three years in the top flight of English football.

There wasn't a single Scotsman on the pitch in yesterday’s final between Chelsea and Arsenal.

Albion winger Jamie Murphy’s call-up to the Scotland squad for the World Cup qualifier against England at Hampden Park in a fortnight further highlights why Smith has a furrowed brow.

Murphy, pictured above, was not a regular in the Seagulls’ promotion to the Premier League. He started fewer than half of their matches in the Championship.

The 27-man Scotland squad named by Gordon Strachan and his No.2, former Albion manager Mark McGhee, includes just a handful of players attached to Premier League clubs.

Only West Brom duo Darren Fletcher and James Morrison, James McArthur (Crystal Palace), Robert Snodgrass (West Ham) and Ryan Fraser (Bournemouth) have been consistently picked.

Smith said: “I remember checking up recently. I do media stuff now and I was investigating it, how many Premier League players are Scottish?

“I found some but I couldn’t find any at the time in the top eight Premier League teams. In my day you had loads of Scottish players at the top.

“Liverpool had Dalglish, Souness, Hansen, Man United had McQueen and Albiston. There were Scots players at every level of the game.

“Already, we are seeing a big drop in the number of English players at the highest level. That’s a factor too.

“The money in the English game has gone to another level from Scotland. Financially there used to be a gap, but not such a big gap.

“In those days, Scotland and Ireland were always another market for English teams. There were very few foreign players in the game at that time down south.

“Muhren and Thijssen came through at Ipswich, Villa and Ardiles at Spurs. Other than that, I don’t really remember many top class foreign players in the (English) game.

“Anybody outstanding from outside the English market were from other British teams.

“It’s worrying now. At full international level we want to see our best players coming through and playing at the highest level.

“Players getting picked for Scotland aren’t even regular players in their team. Some of them might even be Championship players who are chosen for Scotland and aren’t even a regular.

“That is a worrying aspect. It shows the level the Scottish team has dropped to because of that.”

The solution, Smith believes, lies in better development of young players north of the border, in the absence of any quotas being imposed.

The 62-year-old former chief executive of the Scottish FA said: “That won’t happen, there won’t be anything like that, so what we need to do is make sure we try to develop our players in a better way.

“There is a lot going on now in Scotland in terms of trying to make the development side of the game better.

“I think that’s very important. We want to bring through kids and coach them in the right way, the right psychology, physicality, to get them to a level to go and compete with the foreign players coming in and the lads in England.

“An improvement has come in the last few years. A few years ago there were very few players in the Scottish pool connected to the Premier League in England. There are one or two more now.

“Young Scottish players are being signed. The big problem is they are going from being a first team player in Scotland to a development player in England and they basically disappear at that stage.

“It depends how they can develop when the competition is huge to try and break through.”

Ben Hall at Albion, although Northern Irish, makes Smith’s general point. The central defender, signed last summer following regular appearances for Motherwell in the Scottish Premiership, was nowhere near Albion’s Championship side.

Teenage defender Josh Kerr’s decision to join Albion’s development squad, rather than accepting another contract from Celtic, suggests the improvements in Scotland referred to by Smith will take a while to make a meaningful impact.

“One of the greatest compliments I ever had throughout my whole career was when I was playing for Brighton,” Smith said.

“Ron Greenwood, the England manager at the time, said to me he really enjoyed watching me playing and he couldn’t believe Scotland weren’t picking me.

“He said if I was English I would be in his team.”

It is hard to envisage Gareth Southgate uttering something similar to any Scottish player