SFA binned Strachan too soon... they would be crazy to make the same mistake by axing Clarke
Knives are out for Scotland manager but it’s nonsense to suggest his time is up
DANGEROUS times these for Steve Clarke.
Make no mistake, the knives have been out for Scotland’s manager over the last few days, ever since the final whistle on Wednesday night shut down his pathway into the World Cup in Qatar.
Despite the fact no other manager has been able to do it for decades, Clarke stands accused of failing to deliver on his remit – making him more vulnerable than at any time over these last three years.
And at moments as delicate as this, often sound logic and solid reasoning can be lost in the stampede for change.
In fact, as ridiculous as it may seem after laying down irrefutable progress, Clarke will have his work cut out just keeping the mob at a safe distance now that they want someone else to step forward and take his place. Anyone else for that matter.
Just ask Gordon Strachan who had to pull the blade out from between his shoulders five years ago after the SFA’s error-prone chief executive Stewart Regan plunged it there following a near miss at qualification for Russia 2018.
The truth of the matter is, having personally led a steering group which gave the go ahead for a £33million sporting centre of excellence to be built on the outskirts of Edinburgh, Regan needed a manager in place who would agree to facilitate a switch of the national team’s HQ across the M8. That Strachan resisted stubbornly against the idea of upping sticks for the Oriam on the basis of what he believed to be in the best interests of his players was the real reason behind Regan’s decision to remove him from the Hampden hotseat.
But, typically, he only felt emboldened enough to do so on the back of another tournament that got away and just when Strachan’s position was the matter of considerable public debate.
This ill-conceived parting of the ways was an underhanded act of opportunism masquerading as decisive leadership and it buffered Scotland’s international recovery completely off the tracks. Strachan was escorted out of the building despite collating an impressive win percentage of 47.5 during his time in charge.
For the record, that’s the best set of numbers chalked up by any Scotland boss since Tommy Docherty won seven out of 12 games – and that was half a century ago.
Clarke’s own statistics also stand up to rigorous scrutiny.
With a current win rate of 45.45 per cent, he and Strachan are comfortably the best performing Scotland managers this side of the Millennium with only the late, great Walter Smith coming close at 43.75. Add to that the fact that just last summer he led the country to a first major finals since 1998 and it actually beggars belief that we’re even having this conversation in the first place.
And yet, since that crushing 3-1 defeat to Ukraine, Clarke hasn’t had to look very far to find someone else who thinks he could do the job better.
Over the weekend, former Scotland boss Craig Levein even waded in with both feet live on national radio when he questioned Clarke’s team selection and tactical awareness in Wednesday’s no-show in the play-offs.
This brutal critique was quite something, given that Levein got himself into such a horrible state during his own time at the helm that he actually forgot to play a striker for a game in Prague. Levein
Clarke’s win rate for the national team stands up to rigorous scrutiny
might have prefaced it by talking up Clarke’s achievements in the role and insisting the boss has credit in the bank where his job security is concerned – but by doling out such a withering public assessment, he was also pouring a gallon of petrol onto the fire which lit up at the National Stadium the other night.
He was scathing over Clarke’s decision to deploy Scott McTominay, Grant Hanley and Liam Cooper as a three-man defence – insisting none of them ought to have made it into the starting XI.
If it had been down to him, Levein would have opted instead to pair John Souttar and Scott McKenna at the heart of Scotland’s defence while also ripping up the bespoke formation which Clarke has fashioned in order to get Scotland this far. There may be something in that as Clarke’s system was designed to shoehorn Kieran Tierney and Andy Robertson into the same team so, in the event one of them is not available to him, perhaps Clarke ought to be more flexible.
It’s entirely possible that he will roll something else out for the final three games of Scotland’s season even if it means opening himself up to accusations of locking the stable door after the horse has already bolted.
But Levein’s attack was also indicative of the position Clarke finds himself in now he’s left to pick up the pieces of a shattered campaign and head forward towards the Nations League matches against Armenia and the Republic of Ireland. His every move is about to be placed under the microscope like never before and if he should fail to win any of these games then all the noise around him will soon become something of a clamour. In this instance, Scotland ought to take a deep breath and be careful what it wishes for. To chase one good manager out of town may be regarded as a misfortune. To get rid of two of them in the space of five years would look an awful lot like carelessness.