THE international breaks are always a difficult time for a club manager as they wait anxiously on their players returning, hopefully fully fit and ready to go for the next games.

With Allan McGregor retiring from Scotland and the likes of Ryan Jack not selected, Rangers didn’t have too many away.

Steven Gerrard will have been keeping a close eye on Alfredo Morelos’ progress while he was away with Colombia and it was great to see him get his first start against South Korea.

He played the first 45 minutes and will rightly be proud at representing his country for the second and third time.

Travelling to Yokohama and then Seoul isn’t ideal preparation for an Old Firm game but hopefully Alfredo comes back ready to go again on Sunday. But Steven will have to wait and see how Borna Barisic is after he was forced off against Hungary.

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Time will tell whether he is fit enough to start or Andy Halliday gets the nod at left-back. In midfield, Scott Arfield wasn’t able to meet up with the Canadian squad.

I think the international break has been more beneficial for Celtic than it has for Rangers.

The fact that Kieran Tierney didn’t play for Scotland isn’t ideal for Neil Lennon because he might have been needing the games after injury.

But Callum McGregor has got two matches under his belt, Scott Bain has been ticking over and James Forrest made an impact off the bench against San Marino.

They had to come through a couple of time zones during the break but the game time that McGregor got will certainly be a benefit to Celtic.