Steve Clarke has urged his Scottish side to bounce back from a “disappointing” performance against Belarus, ahead of the climax of their World Cup Qualifying campaign.
The Scots sit second in Group C, and are unbeaten in their opening four matches, including back-to-back Hampden victories over Greece and Belarus.
Speaking to BBC Scotland, Clarke spoke of his halftime “anger” during the abject Belarus performance:
“The anger from me in the dressing room was to try to provoke a reaction from the players, to let the players know that with my experience, I could feel that there was a possibility to drop points in a game that we shouldn’t drop points.”
“I can’t say it was uncontrolled anger, because it was, it was something that very occasionally, as a manager now you can use, it’s not something you can use all the time, but that just felt like an appropriate moment to show a little bit of anger and get a reaction.”
“And I think the start of the second half was better. There was a good reaction to that, but the game sort of settled back into its old ways. And like I said, performance disappointing result is exactly what we wanted – three points.”
First up is Greece, a familiar foe, whom Scotland have already faced three times this year. Ivan Jovanovic’s side is a stern test, and relegated Scotland to the Nations League B following a dominant 3-0 victory at Hampden in March.
They sit third in Group C, and can no longer qualify through the group after unbeaten starts for Scotland and Denmark. Clarke appreciates that his side’s performances have pushed them into a positive position in the group:
“If anybody had said going into the last month, the final two games, that one of our biggest rivals would already be out of the equation for the play-offs or the automatic qualification, I think everybody would have taken that.”
“We need to be disappointed in the performance against Belarus, but we also need to keep a sense of perspective that we’re in a really good position and can we capitalise on that in the two games coming”.
If Scotland avoid defeat in Piraeus, they can set up a World Cup showdown match against Denmark at Hampden Park on Tuesday evening. A massive week awaits Steve Clarke’s Tartan Army.
