McKenna can be a Premier replacement for Tierney

THE loss of Kieran Tierney has given Steve Clarke plenty to ponder in the lead-up to Wednesday’s World Cup play-off semi-final. Scotland’s switch to a back three, designed to accommodate Tierney and Andy Robertson, has been crucial to the team’s success.

There may be no like-for-like replacement for the Arsenal man but, from the two available options, I would go for Scott McKenna (below) over Liam Cooper.

Cooper has never let Steve down but the Leeds captain is more accustomed to playing in a back four at club level.

If you are looking for somebody who knows the position and who’s in a good place, then McKenna fits the bill.

And, hopefully by this evening, he too will be a Premier League player.

Scott’s form has been really good for Nottingham Forest, particularly on the run to this afternoon’s playoff final against Huddersfield.

I still have some regret around the way a proposed move from Aberdeen to Aston Villa broke down for him in 2018. That transfer would have been fantastic for him, a chance to get promoted with Villa and become a Premier League player sooner.

He had to be patient. Other clubs came calling but one of those is now in League One and a couple of others have been at the bottom end of the Championship.

So, with hindsight, you have to say Scott’s decision to choose Forest two years ago was the right one.

And although Aberdeen knocked back that much higher offer from Villa, they will be compensated significantly if he is promoted at Wembley today. Forest are the form team going into the final. They just missed out on automatic promotion after coming from a long way behind but there has been no hangover from that disappointment. They dealt with Sheffield United in the semi and I think they can deal with Huddersfield, too.

It’s the richest game in football and often it’s the team with the biggest nerve that can deal with the occasion.

Scott is an international player and has played in big games north and south of the border, so I expect him to take it in his stride.

Even if Forest don’t go up, maybe Scott has already shown Premier League clubs what he is capable of — he could play for some of those sides now. And it’s a great story because he has worked so hard to get where he is today.

He might fall short in some aspects but he more than compensates with his strengths.

Some boys kid themselves on and go home pretending they have had a good game when they haven’t. Scott was at the other end of that spectrum.

He always felt that responsibility, he never wanted to make a mistake and was really hard on himself — probably too hard — if he fell below the standards he set for himself.

It was only in my last season at Aberdeen that we went with a back three but I always felt Scott had the ability to step in.

He did need to improve in terms of committing people and breaking the lines but it’s no surprise to see him doing that now. In training, he was always comfortable on the ball and showed up well in our passing drills.

That didn’t always translate to match day. He is a bit old school and wanted to defend first. But having played for a year in a team where the manager is committed to playing out, he has had to take on that responsibility. And that can only help his case to play for Scotland.

Scott’s mantra will still be to keep a clean sheet. He sees it as a real personal slight if he can’t keep the ball out of the net. He is a throwback in that sense. He knows his job.

There’s always a sense of pride when you see players you’ve managed do well and so it was nice to see Ryan Jack and Scott Wright score for Rangers in last weekend’s Scottish Cup final, just as I was pleased for Ryan Christie and Graeme Shinnie gaining promotion with Bournemouth and Wigan respectively.

Hopefully, Scott can achieve something similar.

In terms of the Ukraine game, we need to sanitise things and see it from our own perspective.

Yes, we have sympathy for the ongoing situation in Ukraine. But while I do recognise that it will galvanise the Ukrainian team, I have tried to reverse the scenario in my head.

If Glasgow and Edinburgh were being bombed, lives were being lost daily, would qualifying for a World Cup finals really be at the forefront of everyone’s minds?

It would seem so unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

Ukraine has much bigger issues than qualifying for a World Cup and we need to separate ourselves entirely from the suffering that country is going through.

If Scotland just play the game, our players against theirs, we would back ourselves to take them on.

Qualification would be huge for us. If we play anything like we can, then this hurdle is the easier of the two that stand between us and the tournament.

The draw has been kind to us. If at the start of the campaign we had been offered two matches against Ukraine and Wales to get to the World Cup finals, we would have taken that.

It’s important we give ourselves that shot against Wales in the play-off final next Sunday.

The Welsh have a system which provides plenty of support to their star player Gareth Bale.

Dan James and Aaron Ramsey are key to that system and there’s no doubt that when Wales win games Bale and Ramsey are at the heart of it.

Away from Hampden, it’s a bigger challenge — we’ve seen how the Welsh players respond to their home support in Cardiff.

But I still think it’s a game we would win.