Scots deserved criticism but Clarke is still the man
THE SPFL fixture list arrived on Friday but some of the new-season excitement was swallowed up by the gaping big hole in the middle of the schedule. The Premiership will pause for a long mid-season break in November and we’re all in for a really tough watch when the World Cup kicks off in Qatar.
Group B is going to be particularly frustrating to behold. When we see Wales playing against England, the USA and Iran, we will feel it could and maybe even should have been us.
For probably the first time in his three years as Scotland manager, Steve Clarke has been questioned over team selection and tactics, but I don’t think the criticism has been over the top.
In the wake of the defeats to Ukraine and the Republic of Ireland, it’s something that simply goes with the territory.
Let me be clear that Steve remains absolutely the right man to manage the national team.
It’s precisely because of the good work done over the course of his tenure that expectations have been raised to the point where we believe we should be qualifying for major tournaments.
But we were expecting more from this talented group of players than they showed in both the World Cup play-off semi-final against Ukraine and, indeed, the Nations League disappointment in Ireland.
The players picked themselves up to beat Armenia in straightforward fashion as you would expect. But the performance we then gave in that 3-0 defeat in Dublin was one I just didn’t think we were capable of. I thought there was a lack of aggression in our play.
Having watched Ireland play Armenia the previous Saturday, I thought they were the perfect opponent for us.
But it just shows that you have to turn up and perform. Individually and collectively, we were poor and never got going at all.
After two sore defeats, the manager’s tactics were bound to be analysed, but everyone is an expert in hindsight. The main arguments are that we shouldn’t have gone two up front against Ukraine, that we should have gone with a back four.
We had gone eight unbeaten playing with three at the back so the question is whether it’s the system or the players within it that have been key to that success.
The first thing Steve had to deal with was the absence of Kieran Tierney. The back three works because it’s allowed Tierney and Andy Robertson to dovetail so effectively. When Tierney is left of that back three he doesn’t play the position like a centre-half. His heat map will show you that he doesn’t stand still, he plays the position more like another wing-back.
The problem is we don’t have another player like him, all our alternatives were traditional centre-backs. Liam Cooper is more used to playing in a four at Leeds which is why I thought Scott McKenna might have been the man to step in.
But while McKenna is used to stepping out of a three at Nottingham Forest, he is not a like-for-like replacement either.
And look at it this way — if Steve (right) had switched to a back four and lost the game, he would have been accused of abandoning a winning formula. Once again, the system won over personnel in Dublin and I can understand that.
We lost poor goals but the back three was not the reason we looked vulnerable at set-plays.
If anything, retaining that extra centre-half should have helped against Ireland’s own big three.
I didn’t like Jack Hendry picking up Shane Duffy. I thought that was a mismatch straight away. Duffy is Ireland’s strongest aerial threat and you would not regard Hendry as our strongest header.
McKenna was picking up Nathan Collins, who is next strongest, with Grant Hanley as spare in the middle of the goal.
At times, you want someone strong to attack that space but Ireland were bypassing that for Duffy at the back post and the delivery from James McClean was good. Eventually, McKenna took ownership of that situation and swapped with Hendry.
Set-plays are very important in international football and we lost a preventable first goal followed by a quick second. We never recovered from that.
Steve has probably learned from these games. If Tierney is not there — and I hope he is because we are a different team when he is available — Steve may look to change it in future.
But the chances are we would have lost both those games with a back four. Because on each occasion it was about the performance level rather than the system. I find it hard to criticise any of these players individually, especially guys like John McGinn and Callum McGregor, who were still running hard for the team in the final game of a long season in Yerevan on Tuesday.
At this time of the year, that’s a difficult assignment. The travelling, the heat and humidity are all factors and the mental side of it is big, too. Look at England against Hungary — it’s hard to keep going at this time of year.
These guys are seeing all their team-mates on holiday and they’re being asked to go and every part of their body is telling them they should be on the beach, too. It can be hard to find that edge. At times, Scotland lacked that over the four games and it’s hard for supporters to understand. But they found the motivation and level of performance to overcome all of that even after going behind to Armenia early in the game. But it was Scotland who held their composure while Armenia unravelled and lost their discipline. We do expect a lot from this national team but that is not a bad thing. It shows that there is more trust in this Scotland team than we have had for many years.
That’s why the disappointment was compounded so much. We expected to beat Ukraine and would have expected to beat Wales.
Steve got us into that position where we were so close to qualifying for our first World Cup since 1998. We qualified for Euro 2020 and we should expect to go to the next Euros in 2024, too, whether that’s via the Nations League or the more traditional qualifying route.
And, if we arrive in another play-off, we need to channel the disappointment of Ukraine.
We’re not perfect but, for a nation of our size, we have options and decent depth and there is a quiet confidence about us. We have the players to qualify for more major tournaments.
That expectation brings scrutiny and questions will be asked if things don’t go well. So long as it doesn’t become personal that’s fine. It’s time to embrace that pressure.