Trepidation and optimism as eyes turn to Scotland squad and crunch World Cup qualifying triple-header

Steve Clarke will announce his next Scotland squad on Tuesday. While there won’t be as much anticipation and excitement as there was around the 26-man unit which competed at Euro 2020, these are still three tremendously important fixtures.

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After being starved for 23 years, the country got a taste of international tournaments once again in the summer and our supporters are desperate for more.

Unfortunately, the competition also highlighted how tough it’ll be for us to make it to Qatar 2022. The Austrians took eventual winners Italy to extra-time in their last 16 encounter, while Denmark were semi-finalists before losing to a contested penalty in their encounter with England at Wembley.

Third place in this group wouldn’t be the end of the world. After all, it’s where our seeding should dictate we’d finish. But we’d need to see further evidence that this management team is continuing to have Scotland trending in the right direction after years of frustration.

Scotland will announce manager Steve Clarke's next squad on Tuesday. Picture: SNS

There’s disagreement amongst the support as to whether the Euros was an example of that. We finished last in the group and only scored one goal in three games. But we also competed well against three sides who, ultimately, were tougher than what we assumed going into the tournament, which of course included holding eventual finalists England to a deserved 0-0 draw in their own stadium.

Battle hard against Denmark and get a point in Austria (while obviously beating Moldova comfortably at home) and the majority of supporters would remain firmly behind the manager who led us out of the wilderness with that excellent performance and result in Serbia. Limply lose both and questions will be asked.

Denmark will obviously be the toughest proposition. Not only did they show themselves to be a mighty foe in the summer, they will also be playing in their first official home game since Christian Eriksen suffered a near-fatal heart attack during the first half of their first Euro 2020 encounter against Finland. Even though they did play in Copenhagen throughout the group stages, the atmosphere will be rocking with a little bit of time to reflect and absorb, while you’d have to assume Eriksen himself will be a guest of honour for the occasion. Getting in and out without getting battered is potentially the best we can realistically hope for.

The Moldova game should see a strong crowd, if not a sell-out, for the first time at Hampden Park since before the pandemic and the level of opposition should give Clarke the opportunity to rotate things a little and see if some of our younger players, like David Turnbull or Nathan Patterson, cope as starters in a competitive international fixture. Expect more than three strikers to be picked in the squad on an account of this.

The final contest will be the most important of them all. Denmark battering Austria in Vienna on matchday three was a significant boost for Scotland’s chances; wave goodbye to the Danes as they run away with it, hope they dish out similar punishment when the two meet on matchday eight, and position ourselves to be better than Austria and get into the play-offs. The problem is after drawing with Austria in our first qualifying match and then dropping points away to Israel, we’re already playing catch-up. Another share of the spoils and we’re going into our final four matches either hoping to beat Denmark in our final game, which is conceivable as they’d have already qualified, or hope Austria suffer an upset at the hands of either Israel, Moldova or the Faroes. Israel defeated Austria 4-2 when the two sides met in Haifa in Euro 2020 qualifying, so that scenario is not altogether unrealistic, but we’d obviously much prefer to have it in our own hands.

Besides, leaving Austria with all three points would be a tremendous lift for the whole team. For as much talent as they have, they still look like they lack a little bit of belief on the biggest stage. A victory in such an important fixture would help us get some swagger back. The problem is that we’re going into the next three games with a potentially disastrous injury issue.

Clarke’s system revolves around the two world-class left-sided defenders we have in Andrew Robertson and Kieran Tierney. Neither of whom might be fit for the triple-header with Robertson almost certainly out after damaging his ankle ligaments, while Tierney limped out of Arsenal’s defeat to Chelsea on Sunday. The two are a fantastic attacking tandem down the left with Tierney often playing like an auxiliary winger from his position on the left of the back three. The change to the 3-4-3 was inspired by the desire to have two of our best players in the same side. Without them, is the system still required? Do we change it up or hope a combination of Bologna’s Aaron Hickey and Hibs defender Josh Doig can do a decent impersonation for three games? The rest of the team could perhaps benefit from continuity as the team still operates a little inconsistently in the formation.

Clarke will be buoyed by the improvement in Callum McGregor and Ryan Christie since Ange Postecoglou became Celtic boss, meaning they’ll each go into the match with rising confidence, while the return of Billy Gilmour to the centre of the park will give us the opportunity to enjoy a greater share of possession and take the pressure off a defence which, though improving, still doesn’t look particularly robust on paper.

There will likely be a change of goalkeeper with Hearts’ Craig Gordon continuing his form after the club’s ascension to the Premiership as David Marshall has slipped down the pecking order at Derby. And it was also heartening to see Che Adams get off the mark for Southampton at the weekend.

Though we’ll rightly be going into these games with a healthy amount of trepidation, there’s still reason for optimism.

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