No Lyndon Dykes but Scotland have plenty in reserve for Moldova, insists Steve Clarke
The Queens’ Park Rangers striker, scorer of four goals in the World Cup qualifying campaign that is one win away from a play-off place, is suspended for the penultimate fixture in Chisinau on Friday.
However Clarke insists he has enough in reserve to lead the line in the forward’s absence before returning to Hampden on Monday to face group winners Denmark.
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Hide AdThe coach has backed Jacob Brown, who could be given a debut over the next two qualifiers, and Kevin Nisbet despite the Hibs striker struggling in front of goal at Easter Road this season.
"We still have good options upfront. Jacob’s come in to the squad fresh and is someone different. Kevin Nisbet is probably not in the best form of his life in terms of his club but anytime Kevin has been with us he has done well. He did well against Moldova in the game at Hampden and was involved in the goal.
“I have got Che Adams who is hitting a nice little vein of form at the right time with Southampton in the English Premier League – a tough place to do it, so we have good options upfront.
“We also have good attacking midfield players - Stuart Armstrong is back playing for Southampton again, looking good. John McGinn - I don’t need to say much about John with Scotland, he’s scored a lot of goals for us. David Turnbull at Celtic has done fantastic in that sort of attacking midfield position so we have plenty of options.”
Friday’s match falls exactly a year since the dramatic play-off penalty shoot-out win in Belgrade sent Scotland to Euro 2020 and Clarke is hungry for more tournament action in Qatar by securing another play-off possibility.
"If you’d said would have a chance with two games to go needing one win to secure playoff place, I think most people would have accepted that at the start of the year,” he told Sky Sports.
“The group is improving, it is hungry and I am certainly hungry to be in Qatar. Hopefully come the end of these two matches we can enjoy the memories we had in Serbia and move onto the next group of playoff matches.”