The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Clarke defiant as critics call for tactical changes
Steve Clarke has questioned the logic of anyone calling for big changes after Scotland’s World Cup playoff disappointment.
The Scots have spent a week licking their wounds after the 3-1 Ukraine defeat.
Clarke has faced some criticism for his tactics and team selection, while several players have been the subject of flak from supporters and pundits.
Clarke insists he has paid little attention to the noise as he prepares his team to kick off their Nations League campaign at home to Armenia tonight.
“What criticism?” he said, when asked about the reaction to the Ukraine game, before being told that some pundits and fans had been critical.
“They’re entitled to their opinion. I don’t know what it (the criticism) was because I didn’t read it, I didn’t hear it, I didn’t listen to it.
“I deal with games and disappointments and move on. We’ve all been hurting but you have to move on, so Armenia (tonight), I’m focused on that.”
Clarke was keen to point out that his team were unbeaten in eight games prior to the Ukraine tie.
“We had a big disappointment to lose to Denmark last year and we bounced back with six wins,” he said. “We’ve now lost one in nine and everybody wants to change what worked before – I’m not sure where the logic is in that.”
Clarke insists the postmortem into the Ukraine game is over and the focus should be fully on a positive Nations League campaign.
After hosting Armenia the Scots face Ireland in Dublin on Saturday and Armenia in Yerevan on Tuesday.
“Ukraine were better than us on the night,” said Clarke. “Analysis is what we do, that’s part of the process. But you have to move on to the next game. Rather than harking back – I know you guys want to go back all the time – me and the players want to look forward.
“You have to look at what went wrong but we’ve got another game coming up... so there’s no point harking back to last week.”
Clarke intends to utilise his squad over the course of
the next week, saying: “With the way the calendar is structured now there are not so many friendly games so there are no real chances to experiment, although we had some friendlies in March which was unusual.
“I’ve always said I’ve got a really good squad, I enjoy the squad. I think there are people in the squad who deserve the chance to play over the next three games and hopefully you’ll see that.
“Going into the first game (against Armenia), we’ve had seven days rest since the last game so it’s not so important in this one in terms of resting people. But over the course of the next six days we’ve got three games and a lot of travel, a long flight to Armenia, so I’ll need to use the squad.”