Steve Clarke cannot be absolved from Euros failure until Scotland are in the World Cup finals and making a proper fist of it

Steve Clarke has no shortage of fanboys and fangirls. Even after last month’s qualifying double-header against Denmark and Belarus, plenty were keen to shout from the rooftops about how the Scotland manager had answered all his critics.

Fraid not, troops. Until the national side is in the World Cup finals and out there having a proper go at teams, Clarke cannot possibly be absolved from what happened at Euro 2024. He can’t be seen to have compensated adequately for what played out in Germany last year.

Make no mistake, last month’s goalless draw in Denmark and victory against the Belarusians in neutral Hungary were good.

The Copenhagen game was trademark Clarke. A backs-to-the-wall, organised, defensive display that set the national team up for the campaign ahead in terrific fashion.

Beat Greece at Hampden on Thursday and follow it up with another win over Belarus and we’re sitting pretty ahead of the final round of Group C games in November.

That’s not enough, though. How can it be? Scottish FA president Mike Mulraney was clear during the Euros when stating in a televised interview that ‘qualifying can’t be enough for Scotland’.

That was immediately before the damp squib against Hungary in Stuttgart, a toothless display topped off by the concession of a late goal, that killed off any hopes of making it to the knockouts of a major tournament for the first time ever.

Time, of course, is a great healer. Because it helps you forget. It helps you forget that Scotland managed just three shots on target in three games. It helps you forget that 5-1 tonking by Germany. It helps you forget just how bad the Hungary game — and everything we tried to do in it — was.

Scotland were suffocated by fear in those finals. So, you might argue, was Clarke. He’d taken a pop at ‘Negative Normans’ pre-tournament, but sent out a team that looked scared of its own shadow.

It had been accepted that the team didn’t do itself justice after making it to Euro 2020. Euro 2024, which came along hard on the heels of blowing a place at the World Cup in a play-off against war-ravaged Ukraine, was infinitely worse.

In the three group games at Euro 2020 against the Czech Republic, England and Croatia, Scotland managed 42 attempts at goal, had nine on target and won 18 corners.

In three games at Euro 2024, they had 16 shots, three on target, with just seven corners. Pitiful stuff. And there’s a fair case to be made that the opposition at Euro 2020 was stronger.

It’s why some of us felt it unacceptable that Clarke was given carte blanche to decide his own future, to disappear into the ether for months after a four-minute after-match press conference — dominated by a penalty not being given and the referee being Argentinian — without any kind of proper post-mortem or examination of why things went so badly wrong.

Having failed on the big stage twice, there surely had to be some proper discussion in public over the wisdom of letting him stay on and have another go.

For avoidance of doubt, let it be said that Clarke has been a good Scotland manager, over the piece. He was the guy who started getting the national side back to major competitions. That’s always going to be a source of pride for him.

It’s what happened when we got there — with what most folk would term a fairly decent squad of players — that’s the problem.

And even if we do get through this qualifying group to book a place at The Greatest Show on Earth in North America next year, that’s always going to colour his legacy unless he can send his team out there with a cohesive plan to dominate and win games and give Mulraney and his bosses at the national association what they rather feebly claim they want and expect.