Lawrence Shankland's Scotland snub at Euro 2024 is a pile of s**** but it might have done Hearts a favour - Ryan Stevenson

Lawrence Shankland can stare in the mirror and know he couldn't have done anymore.

I’ll be honest, I actually feel bitter about his lack of opportunity in Germany and the buck stops right with Steve Clarke. It was horrible to see, even if the Scotland manager might just have done Hearts a massive favour. It was so crying out for Lawrence to be playing against Hungary and for him to only get the last 14 minutes plus injury-time was, in my opinion, just a pile of s***e.

He has grafted for a full year, he has been exceptional and to get the last few minutes and about three against Switzerland in the previous game was just shocking. My bitterness over it is out of loyalty to Hearts and to Lawrence because I know what he did to get there and how much it would have meant to him to get the proper opportunity to do the business.

But forget my loyalty to him and Hearts, the fact is he deserved more of a show purely for the season he had. Listen, although I would have started him in the opening match against Germany, I understood the logic behind playing Che Adams.

By the time Lawrence came on against the hosts, the game was done, but even so, he did some good things and aspects of the match changed. He holds the ball up. I’m not speaking badly about Che, but he doesn’t do it as much.

However, once Germany was out of the way, we knew we needed to win one of the last two games and I can barely believe Lawrence did not to get any real opportunity in either of those matches when we needed to win and score goals

Hungary are a good side and I know that, but they were there for the taking. It’s just my nature and the way I am, but I would have gone for it and that’s not hindsight because the whole country wanted us to go for it.

I would