IF there was a World Cup for wallowing in nostalgia, then surely Scotland would be the Brazil of the sport. Nobody needs to tell Steve Clarke, for instance, that the national team no longer possesses a Kenny Dalglish, a Joe Jordan or an Ally McCoist. Though many fans of a certain vintage often do.
The subject has reared its head once more over the last week following Scotland’s defeat to Ukraine and the win over Armenia, where a 2-0 win could well have been going on for double figures if Clarke’s men had been more clinical at the national stadium.
As it happened, it was two defenders who got the goals in the shape of Anthony Ralston and Scott McKenna, while striker Che Adams squandered a couple of decent opportunities. The Southampton man looks like a forward who is low in goalscoring confidence, having now failed to find the net since late February for either club or country.
His national team manager though is quick to point out that there are other strings to Adams’ bow, and his work ethic, strength, ball retention and clever movement are proving more than valuable assets to his side despite his recent lack of goals.
He is likely then to stand by his man for this evening’s Nations League tie against the Republic of Ireland in Dublin, and not only because with only international rookies of Jacob Brown and Ross Stewart in reserve, he has precious little choice.
“If we always score one more than the opposition I’m always going to be reasonably happy,” Clarke said.
“We did create a number of good chances the other night and I always believe that if you create chances the goals always follow. So if we can create enough chances in the next two games, I’m sure the goals will come.
“Che’s quite good in that he understands his role in the team. He is a striker and obviously he likes to score goals but it’s not always about that. It doesn’t matter who is scoring the goals as long as he is contributing to the team. We never put anybody under pressure by telling them they need to score goals. That’s not the way we work.
“If the goals are coming from different sources and Che is doing a great job for the team, then that’s fine.”
Clarke seemed to take the time to give his forward a little pep talk after substituting him off in the final stages of the win over Armenia on Wednesday night.
“I was telling him ‘well done’,” he explained. “It was a tough night for him, playing against a really packed defence.
“There was no space for him and the ball wouldn’t drop for him in the box and sometimes strikers get a little bit frustrated when that happens. So it was just to tell him that he should be pleased with the way he played.
“I tried to get him off for four or five minutes before that but the ball wouldn’t go out of play. It was the longest spell of possession Armenia had in the game and the two boys [Brown and Stewart] were desperate to get on! It was just one of those things.
“Che stayed on because I felt there was another goal in the game for us and if Che could have got it, fine, But there comes a time when I had to make the change and freshen up with the boys on the fringes to give us that little bit of extra energy to get the game over the line.”
In more general terms, the sting of the World Cup play-off semi-final defeat to Ukraine seems to finally be dissipating a little around the Scotland camp, and Clarke is glad of that, given the importance of the Nations League to his team.
John McGinn has said previously that the players let themselves down by losing focus in the last two matches of their previous Nations League campaign after their famous win over Serbia, but Clarke also has his eyes on a less stressful route to the European Championships in Germany in two years’ time.
“I’m not sure they let themselves down,” he said. “It was a tough situation where we’d qualified for a tournament for the first time in God knows how long.
“In the two games after we actually played okay. We just didn’t get the breaks and sometimes that happens in football.
‘The Nations League is important. We know that. It can give you a back-up, but I’m looking at this group of players and thinking Euro 2024, we want to qualify automatically as of right.
“I’m not sure I want playoffs again.”
The Tartan Army will give an amen to that. And 2500 of them will be in the Aviva Stadium this evening praying for another victory to keep them on top of their group, though Clarke isn’t being lulled into a false sense of security by the struggles of the Irish in their opening defeats to Armenia and Ukraine.
“If you look at both games, and I have looked at both games, they lost them both by one goal,” Clarke said.
“There was not a lot in the games. You could argue that they had chances in both games to take something out of the games.
“Previous to the two defeats they had a really good run of eight games unbeaten – eight games unbeaten is a really good run for anyone. I keep talking us up because we can go on runs of eight or nine games. And that run of eight games included good opponent like Portugal and Belgium. They are a good team.
“They have played two games and lost both games. But they have lost both games narrowly. In football it could have gone slightly the other way.
“We expect a tough game.”
