Villa skipper John McGinn blasts former Wolves boss Stale Solbakken over World Cup warm-up

John McGinn has told Norway manager Stale Solbakken that Scotland are right to look after their own interests after Steve Clarke was branded “unprofessional” over a cancelled friendly.

The teams are both based in North Carolina for their World Cup campaigns and planned a 60-minute closed-doors match at Scotland’s training ground in Charlotte on Monday.

But the Norwegian Football Federation announced on Sunday the game had been called off because of injuries in the Scotland camp.

That sparked an angry reaction from Solbakken but McGinn felt any team would have reacted the same way in the wake of losing a key player such as Billy Gilmour, who was ruled out before Scotland flew to the United States.

The Aston Villa captain said: “Our job is to look after Scotland, Norway’s job is to look after Norway.

“And if they’ve done the research, we lost a very important part of the squad very, very close to this camp. It had a huge impact on everyone.

“We didn’t want to lose another and we have had a few niggles. Not everyone’s been training.

“So I think it’s a professional way of handling things to be perfectly honest, look after number one, and I’m sure every single country will be doing the exact same this summer.”

The 31-year-old added: “Norway will be angry because they will have their own plans. They’d probably set up for that game. But if Norway lost Erling Haaland or Martin Odegaard in one of the games leading up to Saturday, they would cancel the game as well.”

Solbakken spoke out after his side drew 1-1 with Scotland’s Group C rivals Morocco.

He told Norwegian public broadcaster NRK: “It was at least as surprising to me and it is unprofessional of Scotland. It is unprofessional that the coach has not called me, that they use the team manager and call and say it after we have finished training.

“I don’t think the injuries they’re blaming came from the last training session. That’s not the case. It’s disappointing. It’s unprofessional.”

Norway’s team manager, former Fulham defender Brede Hangeland, told NRK: “We have been working on that match for many months. It is embarrassing to cancel it a couple of days before.

“We can’t do anything about it, we just have to forget about it and make the best of it.

“But there has been a lot of organisation, agreements and gentlemen’s agreements and then suddenly they don’t want to. I think that was weak, so to speak.”

A Scottish Football Association spokesperson said: “The behind-closed-doors training game was organised and arranged between the respective team managers – not the head coaches – and this was the same process we followed when we regrettably had to cancel on Saturday.

“We have had some injuries during our previous friendlies and when it became apparent that a training game would bring greater risk than potential preparatory reward, we alerted the Norway team manager as soon as possible.

“We believe this was the right and consistent process. The game was also due to be behind closed doors and not announced publicly – so we were surprised when news of the game broke via Norwegian media.”

Norway are based at Greensboro, about 90 miles from Scotland’s training camp.