Steve Clarke shuts down Scotland relegation 'benefit' suggestion as irked boss says Nations League fight is on

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Suffering an inferiority complex isn’t an accusation you could accurately direct at Steve Clarke. And the bullish Ayrshireman sure as hell doesn’t want it to be labelled at his Scotland squad either as they scrap and fight to save their place at the Nations League top table.

Clarke named his squad for the closing League A double header against Croatia and Poland yesterday. A single point plundered from the opening four group games puts that status in great danger with an absolute minimum three points required from those two matches to even give them a chance of survival.

It’s a run of games that has locked onto the back of a miserable Euro 2024 campaign and means Scotland have now gone 13 months without tasting a competitive victory. But having worked so hard to win two promotions to the top tier, Clarke isn’t for giving it up freely. It’s been suggested by some punters that dropping down a level might not be a bad thing, given the lesser opposition that sits in League B providing more chances of swapping the Ls for Ws.

But there’s no interest in being second best for Clarke. When that notion was put to him at Hampden yesterday it drew a look as if someone had slipped a salt tablet in his glass of water. After a long pause as if to process the suggestion, the 61-year-old said: “So drop down because you think you're inferior? Or try and push yourself against the top sides? For me it's pushing yourself against the top sides - every time.

“Why would you want to drop down? We've worked ever so hard to get to this level, so we want to stay there as long as we can. That's always got to be your aim, to play at the highest level possible.

“I think we've shown that we can compete at this level. What we have to do is learn how to get results at this level. We did that against Portugal in the last one.

“It probably wasn't our best performance with the ball, but without the ball we showed that if you defend well and you don't give away cheap chances, you don't make two or three small mistakes in one action, you're not going to concede goals. If you don't concede goals, you've always got a chance to win games.

“I believe that this run of games, no wins, you can turn it any way you want. For me, we're improving, we're getting better, and we understand at this level what you have to do to get points on the board.”

To be fair, after the misery of the Euros, Scotland have shown they can get close to the top nations over the four games so far in the Nations League. Beaten by a 97th minute penalty against Poland and an 88th minute Cristiano Ronaldo winner in Portugal before suffering more late heartache in Croatia when Che Adams’ injury time ‘equaliser’ was ruled out by VAR for offside, Scotland finally got their first point on the board last time out in that resilient 0-0 draw with CR7 and co at Hampden.

Clarke feels a first victory is close. He said: “Hopefully, it's coming, but there's no guarantees because we're playing against good teams. We'll certainly do our best in the next two games to try and get a win on the board. You get punished at this level if you don't do things properly. Let's work as hard as we can to stay at this level and keep improving.”

Clarke named a familiar looking squad for the double header which will see the experienced John McGinn, Scott McKenna and Jack Hendry return after missing out on the last camp through injury. But there has been a change in the backroom team with Austin MacPhee stepping away from his coaching responsibilities that focused on set plays.

His place has been taken in the interim by McPhee’s Aston Villa analyst assistant Jose Rodriguez Calvo. And the Spaniard looks set to help again in the coming weeks. Clarke said: “I think in the last camp, the set-plays were good. We brought in a young lad from Aston Villa who worked with Austin over the summer in the Euros, in the finals.

“Jose did well, he was good. Organisation was very similar to what Austin did. I think you saw the results of that in the matches. We'll probably go the same again this month. Jose will come back in and help us.

“Hopefully, we'll defend the corners as well as we did and the set-plays as well as we did. Maybe this time we might score one off an attacking set-play.”

Villa skipper McGinn cold go straight back into the starting line-up for next week’s meeting with Croatia at Hampden. And Clarke said: “It's always good to get the players back. But, listen, the boys that came in last month did a good job, so I'm pleased to have some of the boys back. Obviously John is a big character in the camp and also a big player, so it's nice to have him back.”

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