Steve Clarke has revealed how his family’s experience of Covid-19 means he will not complain about the disruption that has affected his Scotland squad before their World Cup qualifier against Denmark on Wednesday. Clarke, who named a 26-man squad, has only 16 outfield players and three goalkeepers available for an already testing tie in Copenhagen.
John McGinn, Nathan Patterson, Stephen O’Donnell and the new assistant coach, Austin MacPhee, have remained at home for Covid-related reasons. Jack Hendry, who plays in Belgium, has travelled direct to Denmark because of testing protocols. Scott McTominay, Kevin Nisbet, Greg Taylor, James Forrest and Stuart Armstrong are injured.
Clarke, though, has pointed towards a bigger picture. “I don’t really want to make too big a thing about it because people are dying of Covid all over the world,” the manager said. “There are people on ventilators and family life is being disrupted left, right and centre.
“The team we have on the pitch will be a really good team and the players we have on the bench are really good players. I don’t want to make it a big drama about Covid issues and losing players for a game because people are losing their lives over this.
“My daughter has been suffering from long Covid since January, so I understand that people are suffering with this disease. So let’s not go too far down the road of ‘poor us’.”
Clarke, who finds himself without a right-back, does feel Uefa needs to look at the timing of competitive internationals. “One of the biggest issues in terms of getting players and getting replacements into the squad was the timescale between getting the squad together on Sunday night and the game being on the Wednesday,” he said.
“If the game had been on the Thursday, that extra 24 hours is absolutely invaluable in terms of readjusting your squad a little bit. So there’s a little bit of help that could be had from the authorities in terms of scheduling.
“I think people scheduling the fixtures need to have a little think about when the transfer window deadline is and try to separate it a little from the internationals, especially on top of the Covid issues and then you get your normal injury issues. We’ve been hit by all three going into this camp.”Clarke has typically deployed a three- or five-man defence, but Scotland may switch to a back four. It is not lost on Clarke that Scotland once made a habit of upsetting the odds. “Historically, that’s always been us,” he said. “We’ve always sort of been the ones where you like to be the underdog, have things go against you and then stand up and show everyone what we can do.”
