With Scotland's hopes on his shoulders and critics on his back, Steve Clarke enters Armenia's Pink City with perspective

His elderly father, now in his 90s, is in hospital. Meanwhile, Steve Clarke spent yesterday on a five-hour flight from Dublin to Yerevan on what some would contend is a mission to save his Scotland managerial career.

Slightly unusually for him, Clarke opened up about such a personal subject last week.

Asked how he had spent the downtime created by the World Cup play-off exit to Ukraine, he revealed he had gone to visit his dad, Eddie, who’s “not very well”. He added that it “puts everything into perspective”.

In the aftermath of Saturday’s 3-0 defeat to Republic of Ireland, it is perhaps even more incumbent on commentators to recognise the circumstances.

From having the hopes of a nation on his shoulders, Clarke now has a sizable number of critics on his back. The eye infection he has been battling for much of this international window might well be a symptom of the stress under which he has been operating.

No-one will be more acutely aware of this than his sons, one of whom, John, stepped into the debate about Scotland’s seriously disappointing international window on social media on Saturday night. It’s all becoming a bit personal and unpleasant.

For the first time at the weekend, fans seemed to turn on Clarke and his team. The manager wouldn’t entertain a question about fearing for his position if Scotland can't beat Armenia this evening. “All ifs and buts,” he said yesterday.

Let’s have a flashback. Not that it is necessary to flash back very far. When Clarke was last in a former Soviet republic everything felt very different. Scotland were targeting the win that would secure the play-off place that yielded such a bitter harvest against Ukraine.

Steve Clarke. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

It was November – 12 months to the day since a Euro 2020 place had been sealed with victory in Serbia, indeed - and the living was easy. Nathan Patterson was on the right, Che Adams was on fire and Clarke was hailed by the visiting fans near the end of the straightforward 2-0 win against Moldova, Scotland’s fifth victory in succession.

It made the undemonstrative Clarke feel a little uneasy. He later admitted that he wasn’t sure whether to respond.

The last time he had waved back to fans, early in his managerial career, his team had promptly conceded a goal.

Now he’s feeling discomfort for a different reason. Today is another anniversary: a year since Scotland kicked their first ball for 23 years at a major finals against Czech Republic at Hampden.

Scotland's players celebrate after the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 qualification football match between Moldova and Scotland at Chisinau's Zimbru Stadium on November 12, 2021.(Photo by BOGDAN TUDOR/AFP via Getty Images)

Absurdly, there are calls for Clarke's dismissal if Scotland fail to resuscitate their Nations League ambitions. He has been branded unadventurous and stubborn. He has been labelled a dinosaur for foisting stone-age tactics on Scotland.

He might not see all this, but his family often does. It reached a tipping point on Saturday.

BBC sports reporter Tom English wrote on Twitter that Clarke was “toiling horribly in the job all of a sudden” and that Scotland’s use of the ball “had been a joke”. Clarke’s eldest son, John, responded with the opinion that the pundit was a “f*cking idiot”. He later apologised to English and deleted the tweets.

“I don’t do social media,” said Clarke. “Obviously, I know that John was involved in this little spat with Tom.

“I haven’t read Tom’s article, but I would imagine Tom had a strongly-opinionated article and John had a strong opinion on Tom’s article. That’s life, eh? He’s in his 30s and he’s got two kids. He’s not my little boy.”

Clarke is carrying on regardless of the brickbats. “I don’t know what goes in that world,” he said. “I have to skim over the media to make sure I know that’s going on but I don’t read any article. You will go away and write something about this interview… I won’t read it. It’s how I’ve always dealt with things.”

All that matters to him is what happens at 8pm local time tonight. The hosts will relish an ambush opportunity in the Pink City, so-called because of the colour of the stone used to build during the Soviet era.

It could be pink, black or made from blue cheese. All that matters for Clarke is that he needs three points to maintain Scotland’s chance of topping Group B1 in September.

Ukraine was bad enough. But Dublin seemed to underline that a weary team were now malfunctioning. Many want Clarke to reassess his commitment to playing three at the back in the continued absence of Kieran Tierney.

“Other people can speak about what they want to speak about, I have to stay true to myself and stay true to what these players believe in as well,” he said.

He was not left reeling by Saturday. “I don’t think shock’s in the football vocabulary, really. You know what the game’s like – games can run away from you quickly. The game on Saturday was ‘they had a good spell, we had a good spell, they had a good spell'.

“We should’ve taken the lead with a big chance from John McGinn, they scored off a set-play that we didn’t defend very well. We had a big chance to make it 1-1 after another good spell, didn’t take it and they immediately went down the pitch and made it 2-0."

Armenia have won their last two matches at home but lost 5-0 to Macedonia as recently as November at their Republican stadium. The heat promises to be oppressive. Clarke wants Scotland to avoid making life unnecessarily difficult for themselves.

“We know they’re decent on set-plays – they didn’t have too many set-plays at Hampden, which was good,” he said. “Hopefully we can minimise those.

“They’re a big threat on the counter attack, they’ve got some good pace in their team.

“But we concentrate on making sure we play our best and if we play to our best, we win the game.”