Alex McLeish feels that Sunderland striker Steven Fletcher should sort out his differences with Scotland manager Craig Levein as soon as possible.
The 25-year old has not played for the Scottish team since notifying Levein via text message that he was unavailable for any further squads in 2010.
Former Scotland, Birmingham City and Aston Villa manager McLeish highly rates Fletcher as a player and suggests it would be in the best interests of Scotland's 2014 World Cup qualifying campaign if he came out of his international exile.
"It needs sorting out. You need your best players because your best players turn you into a better manager," McLeish told SunSport.
"That's the bottom line, it's all about players.
"Steven grew in stature with Wolves over the last two seasons.
"I was trying to get him at Birmingham then we were going to go for him at Aston Villa, but it just never happened.
"He can play the lone striking role which is another plus for him, but I don't want it to look like I'm criticising Craig.
"I don't know what the impasse is so it's not fair for me to say one way or another that Craig's wrong or Steven's wrong.
"But it would be great if Stevie was to make a phone call.
"Has he got the cojones to do that? Hopefully he has, because I'm sure he'd want to play for his national team."
