Steve Clarke has revealed how he had to persuade Kieran Tierney he was better than skipper Andy Robertson to convince the Arsenal ace to move to central defence and solve Scotland’s left-back conundrum.
The Scots boss has lifted the lid on his brainwave to ease the side’s defensive woes by creating a position for the man he now reckons is the best over-lapping central defender in the world.
It was only possible after a heart-to-heart in which he massaged Tierney’s ego.
The masterstroke was key to securing Scotland’s place at a first major championship in 23 years as they recovered from a rotten start in qualifying to qualifying for last year’s Euros thanks to a nerve-shredding penalty shoot out in Serbia.
And it’s worked to secure another play-off spot for this year’s World Cup off he back of a six-game winning run in qualifying.
Clarke admits he did much soul-searching after a 4-0 thumping in Russia in October 2019 left our Euro 2020 qualifying hopes in tatters.
He said: “Defensively we weren’t great and needed a change. I phoned my coaches and said ‘we can’t go with a back four, I want to go with a back three’.
“I had never coached a back three in my life so it was a challenge for me and my coaches.
“We had two of the best left-backs in world football, Tierney and Robertson, and had to figure out how to get them in the team.
“My idea was that Tierney could play centre-back and I had this mad idea that Scott McTominay could play as one of the others.
“I had a really good conversation with Tierney to tell him he was going to be the best left-sided centre-back that Scotland had ever had.
“A myth had built up around Kieran that he didn’t want to come and play with the national team, which wasn’t correct.
“But I think he always felt that he was a better left-back than Andy Robertson. Every player thinks they’re better than the immediate competition and if you compare them, there isn’t a cigarette paper between them.
“I had to persuade Kieran that he was better than Andy and that’s why I trusted him to play left centre-back and not Andy.
“Now, that’s probably not strictly true but that’s how I had to sell it to Kieran.
“Now we’ve got the best overlapping centre-back in world football. It works.
“Selling that position to Kieran was important and it was a really good conversation, he asked a lot of really good questions. I told him I loved him and I wanted him to play there.”
Clarke also reckons convincing Lyndon Dykes to pledge allegiance to Scotland was pivotal in changing the nation’s fortunes.
Speaking on the High Performance podcast he said: “I had good midfield players and I wanted to get three or four into the team but had nothing great up front really.
“I’m not trying to knock the boys we had down, they did everything they could to be successful for us, but I needed to find a striker. Fortunately I found an Australian one!
“I knew that Lyndon was available and I had a conversation with him where I managed to persuade him to come.
“The conversation with Lyndon was quite straightforward. I said to him, ‘I don’t know if you feel Scottish or Australian, only you can decide. This is what we have, this is your competition, but you have to decide who you want to play for because I can’t see inside your mind.’
"He phoned me back and said, ‘I’m Scottish, my wife is Scottish and I want to play for the national team’. I think everyone will agree he’s done quite well for us.”
