FORMER York City defender Ricky Sbragia would be happy to recommend any young Scottish internationals to his old club if needed.

Sbragia is currently in charge of the Scots' under-21 side, having previously overseen younger age groups and has offered his assistance to compatriot and City chief Jackie McNamara if needed.

The Glasgow-born coach, who was a member of the Minstermen's record-breaking, 1983/84 old division four title-winning team, made 179 appearances for the club between 1982 and 1987 and scored ten goals including a late equaliser against all-conquering 1986 double-winners Liverpool, which earned the Mintermen an Anfield replay.

Sbragia went on to serve as youth-team manager at Bootham Crescent for seven years before filling similar roles at Manchester United, Sunderland and Bolton.

But he has never moved away from York and, following the club's relegation from the Football League, he would be happy to give his opinion on whether any players in his ranks would be appropriate for his old employers.

City took under-18 Scotland defender Kyle Cameron on loan from Newcastle last season, along with Huddersfield centre-back Will Boyle, who had previously been involved in international training camps north of the border.

Sbragia wasn't consulted by his old club prior to each transfer, but is willing to suggest potential targets or provide a second opinion if McNamara recruits from that market again.

"If the club asked me, I would recommend players to them who could help, because I'll always want York to succeed," Sbragia declared. "You want players to develop and the manager at York has been playing loan players, not just taking them in as stop-gaps and cover for injuries or suspensions.

"Jackie would obviously need to look at them first, as you'd never take anybody in blind as a manager, but he would know quite a few of them anyway. I watch a lot of games in England, as well as in Scotland.

"We have six players involved with Scotland from Reading for example and I'm always looking at players who might have Scottish grandparents and send out letters to clubs asking them to check. We're looking into James Weir at Manchester United at the moment, simply because his name sounds Scottish."

Sbragia, 60, has only ever been a first-team manager for five months of his career when, as a caretaker chief, he guided Sunderland to Premier League safety in 2009 at the expense of bitter rivals Newcastle.

Whilst in no rush to leave his current post, he is also not ruling out a return to club football at some point in the future.

He added: "I've been lucky enough to be involved in football for 45 years and I'm still enjoying what is a great career. I liked my spell in club management with Sunderland and it would be nice to think I might return to it at some point.

"I was always going to step down at the end of that season whether the club stayed up or not, because the club needed somebody who was a bigger name. The chairman did an interview afterwards though and said I'd taken £60million off the wage budget, brought £28million in as transfer fees and kept the club up, which was worth £66million, so he thought I'd done OK.

"For me, away from all that money, I knew that people would lose their jobs at Sunderland if we were relegated and the fact that didn't happen gave me the most satisfaction."