by WITH Che Adams starting for the last 25 minutes or so against the Netherlands in Amsterdam on Friday night and Lyndon Dykes absent, Steve Clarke is likely to start with a new striker this evening.
Not that the Scotland manager was fazed by reporters yesterday about his intentions for the meeting with Northern Ireland at Hampden. “Do you want the team?” he said with a raise of his eyebrows. “I’ll sleep on it.”
If Clarke wakes up today and decides to change who plays up front in the international friendly it will be no reflection on how Lawrence Shankland performed in attack at the Johan Cruyff Arena last week.
Nor will it mean that the free-scoring Hearts captain is being punished for the goal-scoring opportunity he took – he was clean through at the back with only goalkeeper Mark Flekken to beat and hit the crossbar – in second half of the encounter with the Dutch last week. .
Many fans and pundits have tipped Shankland, who has been given the surprise lead ahead of Tartan Army favorites and proven performers Adams and Dykes, his chance to lead the line for his country in the Euro finals 2024 in Germany in June because of his chance. loud miss in the 4-0 win.
However, that is not how Clarke sees things. He felt the eight-time capped 28-year-old, who netted 28 times in the 2023/24 campaign, proved he could compete against world-class international opposition during his time on the pitch. If anything, he believes the person has advanced his cause.
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“I don’t buy that at all,” he said. “I think goal scorers are goal scorers. He worked ever so hard to get that chance. No one is more disappointed than Lawrence that he didn’t take it. But he knows there will be another chance and he will probably score.
“No, Lawrence was good. The reason I played Lawrence against Holland is because I need to see how he plays against that level of opposition. And it was good. He did no harm to himself.
“Forget the scoreline. Forget the chance he missed. Lawrence was good in the game. It was a good night for Lawrence. Maybe not a good night for everyone else. It was just one of those nights, wasn’t it? When we had to score a goal in qualifying we scored a goal. I’m not worried.”
Clarke, who ordered his Scotland players to press the Netherlands up the field from kick-off on Friday evening, understands that Shankland gives him another option in the final third. A deadly predator isn’t about to be ignored because of one shot that hit the woodwork.
“The other two boys?” he said. “We know what they can do. It would be nice if one of them in the club starts hitting the fences and becomes the main man. I’d much rather have three of them making it into the Euros. Then he makes a difficult choice.
“There’s always going to be a bit of horse in terms of the nature of the hitter, the composition of the opposition and how we’re going to approach the game, with high pressure or a lower block. There will always be room for maneuver with the strikers. And that helps.
“He’s just another player. Dykesy is different from Che, Che is different from Lawrence and Lawrence is different from Dyksey. They all bring something a little different. Dykesy and Che have their qualities and Lawrence has his.”
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Clarke, he recalled to the media, called Shankland when he was playing in the second tier of Scottish football with Dundee United. He feels that he has made great progress as a player since then and that there is still more to add.
“Lawrence has improved,” he said. “There is no doubt. I brought Lawrence into the squad on another dark night (in a 4-0 win against Russia in Moscow in a Euro 2020 qualifier in 2019) and he was an Irish Championship player at the time.
“But of course I saw qualities in him. I thought, ‘If he continues to develop the way he is developing’. And he has done it. He has now found himself scoring goals for the third best team in Scotland this year in Hearts.
“He’s been scoring goals week in and week out. It doesn’t matter who he’s playing with. He will score against Celtic and Rangers, he will score against Livi down at the bottom or St Johnstone. He scores a goal.”
Clarke could do with some of his Scotland players donning their shooting boots tonight.
The national team, who have lost to England, Spain, France and the Netherlands and drawn with Georgia and Norway in the past six months, desperately need to end a six-match unbeaten run and start building a head of steam ahead of the finals Euro 2024.
However, the manager insisted he was far from unhappy about losing to Ronald Koemann’s star-studded side despite the late scoring after watching his men dominate in the opening hour.
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“I want us to be a team that can play different systems, that can play different ways and be confident in whatever way we decide to go on the field,” he said. “Normally against a Pot One team we’d be a bit deeper and we’re waiting for it to finish. We decided to go and have a press and it worked well for us.
“We took them on, we went toe to toe with them. If we are clinical in the right moments and find ourselves in front or find ourselves balanced the whole game changes, the whole mood of the night can change.
“Listen, there was a lot to take from the game in a positive way. In the debriefing we spent as much time, if not more time, talking about the positives than the ending. We saw a couple of things that we can improve on. And hopefully in the future, when we get that kind of situation, we’ll know better how to manage a game like that.”
