Boss in no rush to solve his striker conundrum
Clarke relaxed over small matter of who will be the leading man in Germany
IT will evidently take more than a barren night for his strikers in Amsterdam to deprive Steve Clarke of sleep over the coming three months.
Between Lawrence Shankland, Che Adams and Lyndon Dykes, the Scotland manager sees a spread of skills and attributes that can cause damage when the curtain comes up in Germany.
A firm believer that one forward doesn’t necessarily fit every situation, Clarke is currently minded to alternate his front-line options to suit the job at hand.
‘There will always be a little bit of horses for courses in terms of the nature of the striker, the make-up of the opposition and how we are going to approach the game — with a high press or a lower block,’ he explained.
‘There’s always going to be room to manoeuvre with the strikers. And that helps.’
What would aid him more than anything between now and June, though, would be one of those front men racking up the kind of goalscoring statistics that would render his plans to rotate the position pretty much redundant.
Although Shankland failed to convert the one big opportunity which came his way on Friday, Clarke saw enough in the Hearts forward to believe he can yet be that man.
Despite not having their challenges to seek this season with Southampton and QPR, respectively, he also feels Adams and Dykes are just as capable of forcing his hand.
‘Forget the scoreline,’ said Clarke. ‘Forget the chance he missed. It was a good night for Lawrence. Maybe not a good night for everybody else…
‘The other two boys, we know what they can do. But it would be nice if one of them at their club started to knock in the goals and become the main man.
‘I’d much rather three of them were doing it going into the Euros. Then it makes it a difficult choice.’
On a night that saw both Shankland and Adams fail to find the net and Dykes fail to get off the bench, Scotland’s shortcomings were not limited to the final third. Exhibiting a worrying tendency to crumble once an international heavyweight finally turns up, a hugely encouraging opening hour in the Johan Cruyff Arena ultimately counted for nothing.
Acutely aware that there are no comparable run-outs before the small matter of Germany in Munich, the weekend debrief was no time for pats on the back.
Asked if he took something from his side’s display for 60-70 minutes, Clarke (below) said: ‘Yeah, but unfortunately the game was 93 minutes the other night.
‘Listen, there was a lot to take from the game positively. In the debrief we spent as much time, if not more time, talking about the positives than the ending. ‘We saw one or two things towards the end that we can improve on. And hopefully in the future, when we get to that type of scenario, we know better how to manage a game like that.’ After a bewildering night where the scoreline seemed at odds with the ebb and flow of the game, those seeking comfort pointed to the raft of substitutions made by the manager.
While there’s no question that six personnel swaps in 18 minutes robbed Clarke’s side of their rhythm, it should not have been an insurmountable challenge.
Reluctant to cite the changes as a reason for the roof caving in, the manager said: ‘We haven’t mentioned that. We haven’t spoken about that for a reason. Because we want to be accountable for everybody that goes onto the pitch.
‘We want to be accountable for the whole performance over the 93 minutes. So, it would be too easy to say that.
‘We feel that we have a good squad of players and that when we make changes, we don’t expect the level of the team to drop. I don’t think the substitutes were the reason. One hundred per cent, that wasn’t what happened.’
Reluctant to show his hand, Clarke wouldn’t reveal what he did feel went wrong — but he didn’t have to. Bright and brave in possession, Scotland got sloppy. Without the ball, they lost their shape and concentration.
‘It becomes a mindset more than a change of formation or a change of personnel on the pitch,’ the manager explained. ‘It’s about how you stay in the game for a little while and how you try and get back into it. And we allowed the game to get away from us.’
There is regret about how the night unfolded but not about taking on another arduous assignment and tackling it on the front foot.
‘No, we took them on, we went toe to toe with them,’ Clarke said. ‘It is not so much the performance or how the game went. We did things in the last 23 minutes that we didn’t do in the first 70 minutes and that is why the scoreline goes from 1-0 to 4-0. That is what we have to get better at.
‘Look, we certainly learned lessons and hopefully in the future we can show we learned lessons. If you take the friendly games — England, France and Holland — it’s been three tough games. Have we learned from them? Only time will tell.
‘So, maybe judge us at the end of this year. Because this year we’ll play against top Pot Two sides or Pot One sides. So, judge us then and we’ll see how we’ve done.’
Now building for the World Cup, a youthful Northern Ireland side will represent a different type of challenge tonight to the one Clarke’s side faced on Friday.
With time catching up on some of the class of Euro 2016, Michael O’Neill’s men were never really in the running to make Germany. However, Clarke can see the green shoots of progress.
‘It will be competitive, definitely competitive,’ he stressed. ‘Michael’s team is good. They remind me a little of ourselves three years ago when we were trying to develop and build a structure and a style.
‘Michael is very good at talking his team down and saying how young and inexperienced they are. I look at the results and I think they don’t get beat very often by more than one goal.’