Ross Stewart: Southampton striker’s rise from Scottish juniors to World Cup

It has been more than five years since Stewart swapped a survival battle in the Scottish Premiership with Ross County for the task of trying to get ailing giant Sunderland out of League One.

A barrage of his goals fuelled their promotion to the Championship, turning him into a cult hero among a support who nicknamed him ‘The Loch Ness Drogba’.

However, a hellish period of injury trouble has plagued much of his time at Southampton since joining in 2023.

However, the 29-year-old has shown resilience in spades to recover and score vital goals towards the Saints’ push for immediate promotion back to the Premier League.

Stewart has netted nine times since January, including one against Arsenal in an FA Cup quarter-final win last month and another in Southampton’s play-off semi-final second-leg victory over Middlesbrough last week.

“From January onwards, he’s had a rich vein of form where he’s shown that he can score big goals in big games,” Scotland head coach Steve Clarke said of Stewart, who has been capped twice but not since 2022.

“It’s a good story. He was in my squad a few years ago, showing he can come up to this level. He’s had a terrible run of injury.

“The Arsenal game in the cup, he shows he can have an impact in games of that level. The World Cup will be a very high level as well.”

The striker has, though, been denied the opportunity to write a new chapter in a storybook rise at Wembley on Saturday after his club were thrown out of the Championship play-off final against Hull City because of spying on opponents.

However, maybe he could still make the Premier League on his own if his status elevates further should his scoring form be replicated for Scotland in their first World Cup appearance in 28 years, capping off a remarkable journey a decade in the making.