Clarke forced into major defensive reshuffle
● Opportunity for Cooper and Hanley as injuries rule out Mckenna, Souttar and Findlay
Steve Clarke is aware he hasn’t fully earned his stripes as a Scotland manager until he has been presented with his first full-on personnel crisis.
It arrived over the weekend while he was minding his own business keeping tabs on Scott Mctominay at Manchester United v Crystal Palace. Eventually not one, not two but three medical scans landed on his desk at Hampden. Scott Mckenna, who started both Clarke’s first matches as manager, John Souttar and Stuart Findlay, who were both on the bench against Belgium in Scotland’s last outing, have all been ruled out of the forthcoming Euro 2020 qualifiers against Russia and Belgium. The middle of defence is not an ideal area in which to be short when preparing to face the current highest goalscorers in qualifying and then, three days later, the world’s top-ranked team.
Souttar’s absence was expected because of an ankle injury.
With Clarke in situ at Old Trafford a match proving potentially ruinous to his plans was unfolding on a synthetic pitch in Ayrshire. Mckenna was taken off during the first-half of the 0-0 draw between his Aberdeen side and Kilmarnock. The home team’s Findlay, meanwhile, reported a swollen ankle later that evening having played the full 90 minutes.
“Centre-half was my welcome to international football,” grimaced Clarke. “In the last 48 hours three of the centre-backs I picked last time – Stuart Findlay, Scott Mckenna and John Souttar – were all ruled out. So that was a bit of a blow.”
The thinking behind his mantra that he can never close the door on anyone has been underlined by having to drag the cursor further down the centre-half database. Grant Hanley might have felt put out at being suddenly jettisoned from the international scene after playing in Alex Mcleish’s first game back in charge against Costa Rica 17 months ago.
But Clarke is confident the defender is happy to resume a Scotland career that stalled on
29 caps. As skipper at Norwich City he’s also playing at a higher level than any of his Scotland centre-half colleagues.
“What’s gone before has gone before,” said Clarke. “I don’t really speak to the ones
I am going to pick before I pick them. Rather than a phone call I prefer to sit down with them face to face when I get them in camp and we will go through it. If Grant has any issues I am sure he will flag them up. I know he is happy to be back in the squad. Hopefully he comes into the team and does well – if selected.”
Clarke is grateful to have the option of plugging the centrehalf gap with another player with reason to feel good about himself. Like Hanley, Leeds United skipper Liam Cooper is a leader and with his side top of the Championship, the still uncapped 27-year-old is high on confidence.
The Scotland manager has had less success convincing Steven Fletcher to return. It seems unlikely the 32-yearold striker, who burst back onto the international scene late last year against Albania and Israel, will feature again for Scotland. However, Clarke was at pains not to close the door on him or anyone else.
“Maybe in six, eight, ten weeks [you might need him], you never know what’s going to happen in football,” he said.
He wouldn’t be drawn on other individuals not included in the squad, such as Matt Ritchie and Tom Cairney. On Newcastle United’s Ritchie, who, like Hanley, has not played for Scotland since the first game of Mcleish’s second spell in charge, he said: “Obviously he is not in this squad – you can draw your own conclusions from that.”
While Scotland’s problem at centre-half is a familiar one, the sudden lack of depth apparent in the goalkeeper position is a new headache. For so long the gloves have passed between the dependable trio of Allan Mcgregor, Craig Gordon and David Marshall. While the last named, now at Wigan Athletic, is still there, Mcgregor has retired from international football and Gordon is out of favour at Celtic, albeit he is likely to return for tomorrow’s Europa League second leg play-off against AIK.
Former Hearts keeper Jon Mclaughlin, who has one cap to his name, retains his place but Clarke has gone left field for his third choice goalkeeper, Portsmouth’s Perthshireborn Craig Macgillivray. The 26-year-old has never played in his homeland at senior level and has not featured at any age-level for Scotland.
“I’ve got good reports on Craig and I thought it was an opportunity to bring him in and have a look at him firsthand,” said Clarke. “I’ve obviously spoken to Stevie Woods, the goalkeeping coach, about the situation and Stevie’s
watched him on video quite a lot for me. He’s doing very well, playing for Portsmouth every week, and his club manager [Kenny Jackett] speaks very highly of him. We just feel it’s a chance to bring him into the squad.
“We maybe need to spread the net a little bit wider,” Clarke added. “Angus Gunn has been mentioned before but Angus is playing at Southampton and he wants to wait and see how his season goes there and whether England come for him. He wants to keep his options open. It’s an area where we maybe don’t have too much strength in-depth and we need to have a look at different people at different times. In my opinion the best way of doing that is to bring them into camp and see them first-hand.” was fine. He was very, very enthusiastic when I spoke to him. He wanted to be involved.”
Clarke stressed that Steven Fletcher’s international career is not necessarily over after he was left out again. The pair spoke last week after the 32-year-old Sheffield Wednesday striker gave an interview placing doubt on whether he could cope with the physical demands of playing for both club and country.
“I don’t close the door on anybody, even some of the ones I have spoken to that maybe have said: ‘no, I’m not going to come back’,” said the manager. “Why would I close the door if in the future they can help us? Steven Fletcher falls into that category.”