Harvey Barnes has danced around Scotland questions but big decision looms

The relationship between Harvey Barnes and Scotland is coming to an end. Or maybe a beginning. Over the next six weeks there will be resolution to an issue which has bubbled for more than six years, from the first talk of Barnes changing his international allegiance from England to Scotland when he was a Leicester City player in 2019. It came up again when he privately expressed an interest a couple of years ago, and again when the issue resurfaced last November. Barnes and Scotland has been a story which never goes away and never moves forward.

No sooner had Kenny McLean’s 50-yarder sailed into Denmark’s net, taking Scotland to the 2026 World Cup on that dizzying night at Hampden, than Barnes was in front of a TV camera being asked once more about his eligibility and saying “of course” the door remained open for him and Scotland. The timing looked opportunistic: funny how a country suddenly looks a whole lot sexier when it is going to a World Cup. In fact, in fairness to Barnes, the timing was coincidental. The interview had been arranged before Scotland’s heroics in that unexpected win.

At last, the time is approaching for all the parties to pee or get off the pot. If Barnes manages to play himself into contention for Thomas Tuchel’s England and looks in line for a call-up for their March friendlies against Uruguay and Japan, he will answer that and there is no prospect of him ever turning out for Scotland.

Barnes has won a single cap for England, in a friendly against Wales in 2020

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If there is no indication that an invitation will come from the English, and Barnes or his representatives make it known he is happy to commit for Scotland instead, he will be in Steve Clarke’s squad for March friendlies against Japan and Ivory Coast and then on the flight to the USA. So far Tuchel has never considered him quite good enough for England squads boasting Harry Kane, Bukayo Saka, Noni Madueke, Marcus Rashford, Anthony Gordon, Jarrod Bowen, Ollie Watkins, Cole Palmer and others. Scotland’s options — Ché Adams, Lyndon Dykes, George Hirst, Lawrence Shankland, sometimes Kieron Bowie — look meagre by comparison.

There is an argument that a free-scoring Harvey Barnes at Newcastle United is the last thing Clarke needs, because that would bring him onto Tuchel’s radar and into the conversation for England. Until now Tuchel has never even mentioned him in any media briefings. It is still not inconceivable that Barnes could pull off the latest of late runs for England. Tuchel worries about where the goals would come from if he had to do without Kane. The left side of the attack is a mild concern. He likes Gordon and Rashford but both blow hot and cold.

Barnes is an outsider but he could still play and score his way into serious contention. He was on 11 goals in 30 Newcastle appearances in all competitions going into Tuesday night’s Carabao Cup semi-final first leg against Manchester City, including four in the Champions League. He scored both when they beat City 2-1 in November, plus the “latest Premier League winner ever” against Leeds United this month, in the 12th minute of second-half stoppage time. He had four goals in two games before Tuesday night. That stuff creates noise.

A delicate dance is going on. Clarke would like to have Barnes — who is eligible through his maternal grandparents, who are both Scottish — but he does not want to feel used or played. He will not make an approach if he suspects that he and Scotland will be rejected or he feels Barnes would have to be talked into committing.

Barnes has scored 11 goals in 30 appearances in all competitions for Newcastle United this season

MICHELLE MERCER/NEWCASTLE UNITED VIA GETTY IMAGES

Elliot Anderson was in a similar boat only to spend one training session with Scotland in 2023 and realise that he felt entirely English and was in the wrong movie. He said his thank-yous and that was the end of it. There was no lingering resentment: what a player feels about his national identity is his own business and Anderson was born and raised in England to English parents. All of that applies to Barnes too, who represented England at age-group levels and also earned one full cap as a substitute in a 2020 friendly against Wales under Gareth Southgate.

There is no suggestion that Barnes’s motives should be questioned or criticised. He has been frustratingly vague and non-committal, more than anything, although it was not his finest hour when Micah Richards teased him on Sky Sports by asking if we could expect to see him at the World Cup with Scotland. Barnes jokingly pretended he could not hear the question through his headset, then straight-batted when the suggestion was put to him again. Soon Jamie Redknapp chipped in, saying “Harvey McBarnes has a ring to it” and the moment was lost.

For now there is a sort of phantom Scotland-England battle that Tuchel may be blissfully unaware is going on at all, if he has decided he can go for the World Cup without the Newcastle man. On the other hand, Tuchel tends to make an advance approach to players he plans to call up, often Facetiming them. If he does that with Barnes, or already has, Scotland can forget it.

Clarke’s antennae will be up, trying to clarify England and Barnes’s intentions. If he gets the chance he will sell Scotland to the heavens, maybe gently reminding Barnes that he will be 29 before the year is out and pulling on the dark blue could be his best chance of ever playing at a World Cup. When Clarke last spoke publicly about all of this, just before Christmas, he said: “I will wait and see how it pans out.”

That wait is coming towards the end game.