It might just be an oversight on his Wikipedia page, yet it feels significant all the same.
A cursory look at Oliver Burke’s career illustrates the potted history of the forward’s meandering adventures at club level before setting out his accomplishments in Dark Blue. That section reads as follows: ‘2016-2020 — Scotland: 13 appearances (1 goal).’
While accuracy isn’t always the watchword of those updating such records, there’s a striking finality to his contribution to the national cause.
It’s almost as if the case file was closed four years ago when he won the last of those caps against Israel. As far as we know, it hasn’t been. And nor should it.
Burke is a fascinating subject. This is a player who has fetched more than £30m in transfer fees, £13m of which came when he moved from Nottingham Forest to RB Leipzig as a teenager, then a record fee for a Scottish player.
He was once likened to Gareth Bale. He is only 27 years old, so should be approaching his peak years. But, for many students of the game, he’s now languishing in the ‘where are they now?’ category.
Burke celebrates his winner against Cyprus that sealed Steve Clarke’s first win as Scots boss
Despite landing many big-money moves, Burke has only 13 caps and one international goal
The striker appeared on the radar again when scoring for Werder Bremen against Holstein Kiel
First things first. The answer to that question is Germany — yet again. Not only that, but the one-time wonderkid from Kirkcaldy is playing in the Bundesliga with Werder Bremen.
Burke actually climbed off the bench to score an 89th-minute winner for his club against Holstein Kiel at the weekend, a result which took them up to eighth in the table.
The timing of that should have felt significant. Che Adams has had to pull out of the current Scotland squad through injury.
Lawrence Shankland is still in there despite having a miserable time of it with Hearts. But Burke’s ongoing exclusion has scarcely merited a mention.
‘Not the first time we’ve seen Oliver Burke play the role of supersub for Werder Bremen,’ wrote Bundesliga expert Derek Rae on X at the weekend. ‘Won the game for them today after coming on. Given Scotland’s paucity of attacking options, someone to monitor these next few months. Wrong to write someone off based on past performances.’
Steve Clarke is known for being a loyal manager. That’s one reason why he’s kept faith with Shankland despite him scoring one goal in 18 matches this season for a Tynecastle side that’s presently sitting second bottom of the Premiership.
Burke has been a hit off the bench for Bremen, sparking hope he could yet fulfil his promise
Burke might privately question, then, why he’s remained on the outside looking in these past four years given his history with the incumbent. It was he, after all, who got Clarke his first win as Scotland manager by netting against Cyprus back in 2019.
But it appears the credit he gained from that act of escapology has run out. With Lyndon Dykes and Tommy Conway also in this party, Clarke has other options. You sense it would take a change of manager for Burke to enjoy a change of fortune at international level.
Clarke would never admit as much in public, of course, but you suspect he’s arrived at the same place where so many managers to have had Burke eventually reside.
They are seduced by his extraordinary pace and power. By smoothing off a few rough edges, they believe they’ll have a formidable player on their hands.
They do their utmost to coach and cajole him and are encouraged by the odd moment of promise. Frustrated at being unable to crack the code, they eventually move on. Burke’s had no shortage of admirers down the years. Ralf Rangnick saw enough in him to persuade RB Leipzig to pay that £13m for him. Despite scoring just one goal in 25 matches in Saxony, Tony Pulis took him to West Bromwich Albion on a five-year deal for £15m a year later.
He managed one goal in a year and a half at the Hawthorns. Brendan Rodgers was not put off, though, and took him on loan to Celtic in early 2019. Who knows what would have happened had the Northern Irishman not departed for Leicester a few weeks later?
Burke spent time on loan at Celtic in 2019, scoring four goals in 19 appearances
But others have not been convinced. Neil Lennon, who inherited the player at Parkhead, was never interested in pursuing a permanent deal.
Slaven Bilic felt the same way when Burke returned to West Brom. The forward spent a year at La Liga side Alaves before returning to England in 2020 to sign for Sheffield United.
Chris Wilder liked what he saw. Not so much his replacement, Paul Heckingbottom, who sent Burke to Millwall on loan.
It’s been no bed of roses in Bremen either. Burke moved there in 2022. He scored in his third game against Stuttgart and in his fourth away to Borussia Dortmund. But having silenced the Yellow Wall in a 3-2 win, he then hit one of his own, going 13 games without a goal.
He returned to Millwall then Birmingham on loan. He didn’t score once in 23 appearances for the Blues. At the outset of this season, he was out of the picture at the Weserstadion, not even training with the first-team squad in pre-season.
‘I sat there and watched,’ he recalled at the weekend.
These days Burke is just as well known for being the partner of reality TV star Megan McKenna
His contract expires in the summer, but he has learned not to assume anything. That goal against Holstein Kiel came in a 12-minute cameo.
He’s played for a combined 34 minutes this term across six substitute appearances. You had to go back 551 days to May 8, 2023 for the last time he found the back of the net in Millwall’s 4-3 home loss to Blackburn.
Little wonder he wasn’t getting carried away with himself when the subject of a new contract was raised.
‘I have to prove myself on the pitch and every day in training and then we’ll see,’ he added. It feels an awful long way away from 2016 when Leipzig broke the bank to snare one of the hottest young properties in the game.
That was the year in which a Bale-inspired Wales side reached the semi-finals of the Euros. Amid suggestions England were making moves, Gordon Strachan had handed Burke his first cap earlier that year in a Hampden friendly against Denmark.
It was hardly the player’s fault that everyone and their aunt compared him with Bale. It was, at the same time, a help and a hindrance.
The forward featured against Rangers in a pre-season friendly shortly after joining RB Leipzig
‘I know, I know,’ he said in one interview. ‘It is nice I don’t like to put much pressure on myself. But, yeah, that is my sort of football: get the ball, run with it, use my pace, and create opportunities, cross. But I’m not saying: “I’m like Bale”. He’s won league titles, Champions Leagues, scoring worldies.
‘Being compared to him is nice, a compliment. But I’m Oliver Burke and I’m going to do what Oliver Burke does.’
Fast-forward to the present day, though, and — aside from moving from club to club — no one is quite certain what that is.
Once described by a Scotland youth coach as ‘like a middleweight boxer — lightning quick and very strong’, Burke has physical attributes to die for, but has never quite acquired the game intelligence or finesse to make the most of them.
A thoroughly likeable individual off the park, you would hope that Wikipedia entry on his Scotland career might need amended someday. But it won’t happen any time soon.