Levein’s olive branch to Fletcher: send a text and you can rejoin squad

Craig Levein has offered an olive branch to Steven Fletcher that could bring to an end to the Wolverhampton Wanderers striker’s self-imposed nine-month international exile.

The Scotland manager has told Fletcher that all he needs to do is send a text indicating his willingness to play for Scotland and he will be welcomed back into the fold.

Levein has offered the assurance that he will not be treated differently to any other player should he return – provided he abides by the manager’s rules.

Fletcher is currently the country’s most potent forward on the exalted stage of the English Premier League but barely figured in the Euro 2012 qualifying campaign that came to an unsuccessful conclusion last week. His status is therefore set to remain a vexing issue in the build-up to the 2014 World Cup qualifiers.

Fletcher, 24, has not featured for the national side since sending a text, via a third party, to the Scotland manager stating he did not wish to be considered for the Carling Nations Cup encounter against Northern Ireland in February. The snub followed his omission from the national squad’s friendly encounter with the Faroe Islands the previous November that was perceived as punishment for his outspoken criticism of Levein’s tactics and failure to pick him in the match-day squad of 18 for the now notorious game against the Czech Republic in Prague a year ago when Scotland deployed a 4-6-0 formation without strikers.

Now the Scotland manager has stated, in more conciliatory tones than previously employed, that there is a simple way for Fletcher to return to the international set-up.

“He knows, through a third party, that if he wants to come back in he just has to make me aware by the same means that he bowed out,” Levein said. “There has to be a degree of respect within a group. [When I took the job] a lot of things had gone on that shouldn’t go on in a football team. I think you all know that. The way I look at it, if I make decisions it is 100 per cent because I believe this is the best way Scotland can be successful.

“I have fallen out with a million people during my time in football and 99 per cent of them I am back talking to because that’s what football is about. People have got opinions, you fall out with people, but you have got to work with them. I don’t mind that.

“This is the critical bit – if Steven Fletcher, and I hope he does, wants to come back and play for Scotland he won’t be treated any differently to anybody else, provided he stays within the guidelines. That’s the same for every other player that is within the group.”

Fletcher has scored three league goals in six games for Wolves this season and is the only Scottish striker playing regularly in the Barclays Premier League, with David Goodwillie – Scotland’s scorer in midweek against Spain – still trying to establish himself at Blackburn Rovers.

Speaking last month, Fletcher was quoted as saying: “I do want to play for Scotland but I feel like it’s out of my hands. People say it’s in my hands but I don’t believe it is.”