St John critical of friendlies

St John has been inducted into Scottish Football's Hall of Fame

Former Scotland international Ian St John has questioned the wisdom of friendly internationals in an era of fixture congestion.

The ex-Liverpool striker, 70, who was being inducted into Scottish Football's Hall of Fame, says clubs are reticent to release players for national duty.

"Today there's a massive amount of games and I think too many international matches," St John said.

"They're playing friendlies for nothing."

And St John suggested that there is very little that international managers can garner from such fixtures.

"Why are they playing this friendly? What is the manager going to learn from this?" he continued.

"I would say very little, and all it does is antagonise the club managers who get the hump because their players are away again."

The former Kop favourite, who made 425 appearances for Liverpool from 1961-71, scoring 118 goals, thinks weary players could do without such fixtures too.

Interview: Former Scotland international Ian St John

Scotland manager George Burley has suffered six withdrawals from his squad for Wednesday's game with Argentina at Hampden while his England counterpart Fabio Capello has to travel to Berlin to take on Germany with eight key players missing.

"I don't think the players really want it as they've got so much football that they don't really need friendly international matches," St John added.

Despite this, St John acknowledged that the chance to see new coach Diego Maradona's side play in Glasgow was one he would certainly relish.

"It's an attractive match; Argentina have fantastic players," he enthused.

"If there was any country you'd want to go and see it would be Argentina because they've got great players."

However, Wednesday's Hampden game is far from a sell-out, with around 30,000 Tartan Army supporters set to attend.

St John said: "I'm surprised that the crowd are not responding but don't forget times are hard at the moment. It's coming up Christmas and people are weighing up what they can do with their money.

"You've got to take that into consideration."

And St John, who was capped 21 times for Scotland in the late 1950s and 60s, placed Argentina's new coach Diego Maradona behind his idol Pele at the top of his personal all-time greatest player list.

"Maradona was one of the great, great players along with Pele," St John said.

"I idolised Pele, I thought he was the greatest.

"But I think the little fella is held in high esteem in Scotland - never mind the 'hand of God' thing - the second goal he scored in that game (1986 Mexico World Cup v England) when he waltzed through everybody in the England team and just stuck it in; it was just one of the great goals in world football, in your memory for ever."

St John was honoured at Hampden on Monday alongside former former Derby and Nottingham Forest midfielder Archie Gemmill, ex-Rangers striker Derek Johnstone, and former Aberdeen and Manchester United goalkeeper Jim Leighton.