Stewards’ inquiry on Clarke.. result stands
Under-fire boss has survived roughest ride
STEVE CLARKE must feel he’s on to a loser every time it’s Royal Ascot week.
But so long as he has a detailed and lengthy gaze at the recent form book, Scotland can still be on to a winner with the national coach in the saddle.
Clarke is now back to the country’s summer stables for a debrief and, no question, it has been a rough ride in the past fortnight.
This time last year, as the Royal carriages were in a daily procession down the Berkshire racecourse, the boss was dealing with a procession of steady criticism following his team’s loss in the Euro 2020 opener to the Czech Republic.
Now, 12 months on, as the steeds roar down the track in Berkshire, he’s had to deal with it again. Has some of it been justified? Absolutely. Mistakes were made and the key is it’s been acknowledged.
After winning in Armenia, he didn’t try to dress it up.
Clarke openly said it was a poor fortnight given Scotland “failed in our primary objective to get to the World Cup” and “had a really bad performance in Dublin”.
Adding there’s “work to do” would suggest the manager knows things were done wrong, which is half the battle.
There are accusations that Clarke sticks rigidly to certain formations with three at the back always hotly debated.
And fingers were pointed for not acting quickly enough against Ukraine and the Republic of Ireland when things were clearly going wrong.
Both are fair criticisms and it’s down to Clarke to address these situations. But surely he has made enough progress in his reign to suggest he will.
Too much good has been done over the past few years to want to just chuck it away.
Maybe his critics are right. Maybe Scotland are starting to go backwards.
But basing that judgment solely on the example of the past 15 days is an iffy approach.
Look across the continent at this round of Nations League fixtures come the end of a punishing club campaign and you will see it has brought about some freak results.
Fatigue and changing of teams have caused disruption and disjointed performances. It’s been up and down for so many countries.
That Irish side who looked so abject against limited Armenia went on to take Scotland apart plus a point from a Ukraine team playing their fifth game in the space of 13 days.
Scotland failed against Ukraine, yes. But they are a top team and the narrative that Wales beating them somehow showed up a raft of glaring Clarke deficiencies has to be balanced by the fact Rob Page’s side were outplayed by their opponents in Cardiff. They only got through due to a freak own goal, a ref missing a glaring Ukraine penalty – despite having VAR – and a man-of-thematch display from their keeper Wayne Hennessey. None of this is to absolve blame or even attempt to deflect from Scotland’s errors. The manager and his players made mistakes against the Ukraine and the Republic.
On both occasions they were brutally exposed and Clarke has been around the block long enough to know big setbacks bring big criticism.
But there has to be an intake of breath and a look at the big picture, or else we just go down the road of our cousins south of the border.
Those freak results in the Nations League didn’t come any freakier than England getting four hammered past them at home by Hungary.
Gareth Southgate must be one of the few coaches around the continent to have had a less enjoyable fortnight than
Clarke – four games, just one goal (a penalty), no wins and a threat of relegation from their group plus loss of seeding for Euro 2024 qualifying.
No manager gets to live on past glories. No manager can dine off previous events forever.
But less than a year ago Southgate was a couple of penalties away from making England European champions.
That came on the back of a run in 2018 to the semi-finals of the World Cup.
Yet, inside 12 months he’s got punters in the stands at Molineux chanting: “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
It’s a massive overreaction and it feels as though it has been the same in some quarters for Clarke.
It was Royal Ascot 2021 eve when he started taking stick for choices against the Czechs.
Again, he got some key things wrong that day and so did the players.
But the fact of the matter is Scotland were in there. After 23 years of not seeing a major tournament, Clarke had taken the nation back to the big stage.
Facing Ukraine, Scotland were as close to a World Cup as they had been for some time.
It doesn’t mean it’s all right to make errors on the big night or to keep making errors on the bigger nights.
But surely that means a lot of smart decisions on and off the park have been taken to get you there in the first place.
The accusation of messing up in big games is also a tad harsh.
Other than the Republic, the teams who have beaten us on key occasions in the past year – the Czechs, Croatia, Denmark and Ukraine – are better player for player and ranked higher.
Crucially, the manager has noted it was not good and so long as he can accept there were mistakes made, identify why and set about rectifying them for the future, Clarke’s race is far from run.