How Aberdeen, Celtic, Rangers, Dundee United, Hibs and Hearts could have paved the way for golden age of Scottish full-backs

It is decades since there was genuine cause to trot out the old line about how shaking a tree in these parts would see a Scottish centre-back fall out.

Deliciously, though, recent developments suggest the couthy saying may only need to be updated. Down to the fact that these days it can feel, were you to jiggle such branches, a Scottish full-back would be dislodged. The sprouting of such young coveted performers appears to have no end.

Consider events over the past 24 hours alone. As a deal banking Aberdeen a guaranteed £4.5m fee - with the potential for at least £3m add-ons - for 18-year-old right-back Calvin Ramsay was finalised to take the confident youngster to Liverpool, reports speculated that Bologna could be open to accepting an £18m bid from Arsenal for 20-year-old left-back Aaron Hickey. Such an acquisition, it has been claimed, could result in the Serie A club looking to replace him with Hibs’ 20-year-old left back - there is a theme developing here - Josh Doig. And all this is before considering that 20-year-old right-back Nathan Patterson headed to Everton from Rangers in a deal worth an initial £12m in the January window. Doing so as 17-year-old Kerr Smith, who can operate on both flanks, traded Dundee United for Aston Villa’s academy the same month. For a sum that could reach £2m.

Now, the transfers for Hearts product Hickey and Doig, as it stands, remain firmly in the realms of the possible. However, should they become reality, with Scotland’s kingpin full-backs Andy Robertson and Kieran Tierney already integral performers for Liverpool and Arsenal respectively, Scotland could boast no fewer than eight full-backs – five on the left flank, two on the right, and one a bit of both – in European football’s