Oduor, playing his second national team game, came on as a second half substitute, but was pulled out again, with Firat saying he ‘was a little bit afraid’.

“We had a situation where I wanted to see what Clarke can do in a very aggressive match. When he came on he was a little bit afraid. He has a real capacity, but he can’t put it on the field. I trust him, but he is still playing with some brakes on. If he let’s go, then we have one more good player,” Firat said, when question on why he had to substitute a substitute in a friendly match.

He added; “It is good now he is playing at his club. There are some points we would want to change like his passing into deep needs to improve. He needs to learn to take risks then we have one more player to depend on”

But the experienced coach Hughes seems to have been baffled by the decision and admitted he was worried one of his dependable players this season had picked up an injury.

“I thought he was injured. That would be your normal take on it. I was sending texts and trying to get some information. But that wasn’t the case,” Hughes said, as quoted on thetelegraphandargus.co.uk.

He added; “Clarke was scratching his head about it. He’s not going to say anything against his national team manager but I probably could. It seemed a strange one because it doesn’t usually happen. But the important thing for us is that he wasn’t injured. He wasn’t in a position that he had to come off.”

Despite the incident, Hughes says the club will not block Oduor from honoring future national team assignments, and will support him if called up for the next window of friendly matches in October.

“You understand it. I would never stand in the way of players playing for their national team. It’s not something that you can do. You’ve got to allow them the opportunity and then they make decisions further down the line about whether or not their commitment is really that strong if they are not getting the game time that they feel. It’s very difficult to turn down your country. It is what it is. We should look at it that we’re fortunate that we’ve got a guy playing at international level,” said the tactician.

Oduor had not been called up for any international assignments since being handed his debut by Francis Kimanzi, and Firat said he had given him a call up to assess him and give him a chance.

Stars might play one international friendly match in October, while the World Cup qualifiers kick off in November with an away tie to Gabon.