Clarke ready to handle Covid, and Ukraine clear the way for Hampden tie
Scotland manager, Steve Clarke, last night pledged he will not allow Covid restrictions to wreck the country’s World Cup Finals bid.
The emergence of a worrying new South African variant of the coronavirus, given the name Omicron, has the potential to cause havoc to international travel.
The United States and the European Union have already banned flights from eight countries in the region, with any nation that finds itself affected liable to be added to no-go lists.
It comes at a time, too, when a number of European countries have returned to a full lockdown, following a spike in cases of the virus.
Austria, who are in Scotland’s pathway to Qatar, are among them, with the Europa League tie between Rapid Vienna and West Ham played behind closed doors last week.
Yet while that is bad news for Clarke in his mission to get the players as well-prepared as possible ahead of the semifinal play-off against Ukraine on March 24, he remains confident he and his staff will be able to cope.
“We have to prepare for Ukraine over the winter, and hopefully for Wales or Austria, and it is very difficult going out and about now,” he said.
“In terms of scouting, however, there is loads of video footage available, both tactical and television footage.
“We won’t struggle for material to analyse all the opponents.
“We know Ukraine will be looking at us from our qualifying games, and we will look at Ukraine from theirs. I do not think there will be any secrets from either side.
“There is lots of work to do to get ready for, hopefully, two tough games.”
And with the Scotland boss ruling out the possibility of a get-together ahead of the March challenge, the next time the stars of the qualifying campaign will be reunited will be for the Ukraine tie itself.
“The depth within the squad just now is good, and hopefully that will continue,” he said. “But the most-important thing for the next four months is that everyone plays well for their clubs, and stays injury-free.”
Ukraine have already secured a massive advantage ahead of the showdown with Scotland after manager Oleksandr Petrakov revealed he will get their league fixtures postponed for two weeks before the Hampden tie.
And they also intend to spend a full week in Scotland to prepare for the clash.
Ukraine had 15 of their squad from home-based clubs for the last qualifiers. Their Premier League will go into a long winter shutdown next month, and resumes in the middle of February.
And new manager Petrakov, who was only given the job permanently last week, will now demand that they wipe out the fixtures of clubs, including Dynamo Kiev and Shakhtar Donetsk, where most of their players are based.
He said: “I have already asked the Premier League to move the games involving our players for a couple of weeks ahead of the match in Scotland.
“I don’t want to cause too much disruption because it’s important the managers of the clubs are behind us. But I think we should have as long as we can to prepare.
“We want to fly to Scotland by March 18, start training and wait there for our players who play in Europe. I’ll leave the task of finding a good training base to our administrators.”