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We already knew many things. We know because Clark said a few weeks ago that the team was more or less set in his head.
He values loyalty as much as he values the next breath, so Clarke didn’t mind when others made the case for Ollie McBurney, Oliver Burke, Kieron Bowie, Stephen Welsh and others.
You get the feeling that McBurney could have scored a hat trick in every game over the last two months of the season and Clarke would have been inactive. Maybe he doesn’t like him as a footballer, maybe he doesn’t like him as a person. Whatever it is.
We didn’t expect fireworks, but at least there was a story or two. The underrated 19-year-old Findlay Curtis from Rangers was included after a productive loan spell at Kilmarnock. Taking a few steps up the Premiership table, Curtis found himself on the way to the promised land.
Ross Stewart, an injured striker and largely overlooked during Clarke’s tenure, was selected at the back of the stars for his club Southampton. Swart’s goals and energy and overall level of work are clear. Unfortunately, his injury profile is also widespread.
Clarke has previously put him in a team – in 2011 In the summer of 2022 – but there is a long list of strikers who have featured in the Scotland team since Stewart – not just Che Adams, Lyndon Dykes and Lawrence Shankland, or the more recent arrivals of George Hirst, Tommy Conway and Bowie, James and Neikov Brown.
The manager remembers Stewart well as a player and a personality. Clark puts great store in excellent characters.
That is why Liam Kelly is the third goalkeeper. He probably won’t see any minutes, but he’ll be good in the area; Selfless and positive.
After missing several club games due to an often-deteriorating body, Stewart will be rewarded for his recovery. He has just two caps and has come from relatively nowhere in recent months. He was brilliant.
Up front, there is no McBurney despite his impressive season with Hull City. McBurnie may be playing Premier League football next season – Hull are in the play-offs against Stuart Southampton – but he will be nowhere near the Scotland team when Clarke is in charge.
McBurney has been one of the best strikers in the Championship this season, but Clarke has never found him. A personal thing, perhaps. He deserves to be ahead of Dyke in pure footballing ability.
The 29-year-old has scored 18 goals in 41 appearances this season. Dykes has six in 51. If you include Dykes’ last three seasons — 140 games — he scored one more goal than McBurney did this term, a campaign heavily impacted by injuries.
