Steve Clarke has backed John McGinn to become just the fifth player in history to score 20 times for Scotland after the Aston Villa midfielder took his tally to 16 during their 3-0 win against Cyprus on Saturday.
Only Denis Law, Kenny Dalglish, Hughie Gallacher and Lawrie Reilly have reached the 20-goal mark for Scotland. At 28 and as a regular starter in an advanced midfield role under Clarke, McGinn looks likely to join the exclusive club. McGinn is now seventh in Scotland’s all-time scoring chart.
“Yeah, it’s realistic,” Clarke said of McGinn’s notching 20 goals. “It’s realistic to think about catching the next one. Kenny Miller is the next one he catches and I was saying to Ally McCoist when I did the television: ‘He’s coming for you too!’ So it’s good, his contribution since I became head coach has been really good for the country. I think John enjoys the role we give him within the team. He enjoys being one of the talismans and leaders so it’s great for everybody.
“All the boys in their own way have enthusiasm. John is probably a little bit more of a character than some of them, maybe not quite as quiet as some of them. But it is good to have leaders. John is a leader, Callum McGregor is a leader, Grant Hanley captains his club, Andy Robertson is the captain here. So we have a lot of good leaders in the squad and John is certainly influential within that group of players. He is influential with the whole group of players.”
McGinn publicly stated Scotland need to improve despite an apparently comfortable win against Cyprus. Two late Scott McTominay goals changed the appearance of a game in which Scotland toiled for long spells. Clarke had taken the unusual approach of criticising his team at half-time. “I said that for 30 minutes I was loving what they were doing,” the manager said. “But after that they stopped and became a little bit sloppy. That gave the opposition the feeling they could get something from the game.
“We have to learn from that. We have to be a little bit more ruthless and clinical. It might have felt nice to be popping the ball around in front of 50,000 people but we started making mistakes in possession and Cyprus got a little bit of life from that. We have to be better at that.”
Including, it seems safe to assume, when Spain visit Glasgow on Tuesday evening. Clarke will be without his influential forward Ché Adams, who left the squad on Sunday to return to Southampton for treatment on a calf injury. The Hearts striker Lawrence Shankland has been called up in place of Adams but it seems likely Lyndon Dykes, who impressed as a substitute against Cyprus, will lead the line against Spain.
“Lyndon probably wasn’t happy with me that he wasn’t starting but that’s the kind of characters you want in the squad,” Clarke said. “You want everybody looking at you saying, ‘pick me, pick me’. Lyndon came on to the pitch and I thought he was really good.
“It’s nice when I can turn to my bench and bring on Ryan Christie, Scott McTominay, Lyndon Dykes. They have the energy and the legs to drive us forward and get the next goal.”
Saturday marked Scotland’s first win to start a European Championship qualifying campaign since 2006. Clarke had emphasised the importance of bucking that trend before kick-off.
“This is the first step on the road to Germany,” Clarke said. “It is a home game and you need three points to kickstart the campaign. That’s what we’ve done.”
