JACKSON: IS THIS A RETURN TO ECK ERROR?
Scotland’s future looks ominous as raft of call-offs leaves us back to where we started under McLeish
THE first remit was blindingly obvious but for Steve Clarke it has proven more difficult to achieve than he could ever have imagined.
“Get on the blower to the players who didn’t fancy playing for Big Alex,” was the massage from Ian Maxwell’s office at the end of Hampden’s sixth floor.
“Make the calls, build the bridges, send them f ****** flowers! Just do whatever it takes to get our best players back in dark blue shirts.”
OK, so there may be some paraphrasing but the instructions were crystal clear nonetheless.
Having watched Alex McLeish drown under a tsunami of call-offs and refuseniks the SFA identified Clarke as the man best qualified to stem the tide.
This wasn’t just another manager, Clarke was the real-life pied piper who they believed could charm the birds back out of the trees.
Even if he could not persuade Scott Brown, Allan McGregor or James McArthur into high-profile U-turns after retiring from McLeish’s set-up, the hope was he would at least be able to round up the rest of Scotland’s reluctant conscripts.
On his very first day in the job Clarke confirmed that he planned a series of heart-to-hearts with around seven separate stalwarts, all of whom had fallen out of the picture amid the turmoil of McLeish’s 14 months in charge.
Clarke said on the day of his unveiling: “It’s important to stress if someone has retired from international football, fine, we will respect that decision. If they want to un-retire themselves they have to come back to me or someone else at the SFA.
“Then you have the grey area where some are not quite sure, those are the ones you have to speak to.
“Anyone who comes to the squad now I expect them to be fully committed because I want to qualify for this tournament.”
That second list of names included, among others, Robert Snodgrass, Steven Fletcher and Matt Ritchie.
Of them all only Snodgrass returned to the fold. The West Ham midfielder, who counts among the most fierce of patriots, has now stepped away for a second time and asked not to be considered for the play-offs in March.
That’s a monumental decision given that these games could end Scotland’s exile from major events, a horrendous run of failure which spans back over three different decades of misery.
It makes no sense at all that Snodgrass has chosen to dip in and out of Clarke’s plans at this late and critical stage, other than to draw the conclusion that something behind the scenes in this squad was not to his liking.
Given the strength of his desire to make a telling difference at this level – and in his role as a senior player Snodgrass had even involved himself in detailed discussions with the SFA top brass about how to squeeze a few extra per cent out of the national team at vital moments – it almost defies belief that he has bailed out for a second time
Yesterday Newcastle winger Ritchie became the latest in a line to ask to be overlooked.
And that really ought to worry Clarke too because if there is some form of disconnect between the manager and the biggest characters inside his dressing room then Scotland may be in more bother than most of us had even realised.
Yes, it was heartening to see skipper Andy Robertson report back to base yesterday even though
That Tierney is left out of his squad at the request of Emery is a slap in the face
Liverpool don’t want him taking any part in the next two games. But where else would Clarke expect his captain to be at such an important moment? Certainly, the scale of the calloffs over these few months suggests nothing much has changed. If anything, the situation has become even more inexplicable now Arsenal appear to be deciding whether or not Kieran Tierney should even be considered for selection. That Tierney has been left out of Clarke’s squad for the final group double-header against Cyprus and Kazakhstan at Unai Emery’s request is a slap in the face for a nation that could hardly wait to get the £25million talent back across the border. Which brings us back to Clarke’s second priority remit. To use what games he had left in Group I to find his strongest starting XI in time for the play-off semi-final in March. Of course, that’s not the way they packaged it in public. It’s even more damning when Clarke’s own words on the day are examined. He said: “It is really important we qualify out the group and don’t rely on play-off games as a fallback as those games will be difficult and have a lot of pressure.”
But few were really buying it at the time. Reality was always likely to send Scotland down the whiteknuckle ride of a play-off chute.
Now here we are, two games and four months away, and Clarke is still apparently no closer to working with his strongest squad never mind selecting his favourite XI.
This always looked like being a big challenge for Clarke. As he said on day one: “It is a big thing to do, it is a big step in my career, that’s why I couldn’t turn the job down.
“I spoke to a lot of people in football who were telling me, ‘Don’t go, it can be a career killer!’
“It might frazzle me, I don’t know. But I’m not scared of the intensity and the scrutiny.”
That was a little less than six months ago but already it may feel like a lifetime for Clarke.
Which brings us to part three of his opening day remit. To actually qualify for Euro 2020. Fingers crossed it might still happen.
But to get there without crossing off objectives one and two? It’s starting to feel like a bit of a stretch.