Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but as the dust settles on Scotland’s less than successful European Championships campaign there will be more than a hint of “what might have been” not that Steve Clarke will ever admit to making mistakes.
The Scottish Premiership champions provided just eight minutes worth of competitive action for the national side but with Rangers providing more age group players than any other team, it’s surely only a matter of time before there is bigger contingent.
If, and given the start made, it’s a big if, Scotland can qualify for the World Cup in Qatar, there should be more players from Light Blue lining up in navy – to be honest I’d expect there to be more when the qualifiers resume in August.
Clarke should be looking to next summer and beyond, Jon McLaughlin might not be playing every week but he had 12 clean sheets in 14 games last season, Danny Ward played less and he is playing in the knockout stages for Wales, given his form since he signed, I’d be surprised if the 33-year old doesn’t get the chance to replace Alan McGregor when he hangs up his gloves.
Nathan Patterson is the country’s best right-back and right wing-back, the fact that he is deputy to Gers skipper James Tavernier shouldn’t affect this, he did more in 10 minutes than Stephen O’Donnell did in 80 against Croatia.
Scotland’s midfield desperately missed a naturally defence minded player, someone capable of taking the ball off the defence and moving it on rather than having the ball spend most of the game in the air, Ryan Jack and Billy Gilmour on their own would have made a huge difference, together, we might even have had a chance to go through.
The definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, not that a manager with two wins in his last 11 games should be given the chance to continue making the same mistakes.