Mark Atkinson and Matthew Elder discuss Scotland's agonising exit from the Euros.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Hello and welcome to a late night episode of the Scotsman Football Show, where we've
00:09just finished watching Scotland exit in Euro 2024 in the most heartbreaking of fashions
00:16as we've all become very accustomed to over the years. My name is Matthew Elder, I'm joined
00:21by Mark Atkinson, the sports editor, who will just be looking back over the 1-0 defeat to
00:27Hungary with a goal in the 100th minute, 10th minute of injury time, knocking Scotland out
00:33of the tournament. Mark, your initial feelings at the moment on just what we've witnessed?
00:40Disappointed obviously that Scotland couldn't get through because that's the best chance
00:45this country's had in a long time. Having watched the three group games, I think Scotland
00:49could have taken more out of the games. But at the same time, I think it's deserved, Matthew.
00:55If you look at the performance of Scotland, there wasn't enough in any of the matches
01:00to merit victory. In particular, this one against, let's be honest, a fairly limited
01:07Hungarian team. There's not a lot between Scotland and Hungary. And in the end, Scotland
01:14tactically potentially didn't play it well. They just didn't look like winning the match.
01:20They didn't have enough quality, didn't have enough guile and potentially didn't have the
01:25right players on the pitch. We'll come to that in a little bit. So, a hugely disappointing
01:29evening for the country. You see what the fans have done over in Germany. Tartan Army
01:33have been tremendous and have been great ambassadors for the country. You kind of feel that that
01:39group of fans, hundreds of thousands, deserved more than what they've been shown over the
01:45past week and a half from the Scotland team. So, yeah, a real disappointment and regret.
01:49And now the inquest begins, doesn't it? Because that team does look like it could have done
01:57more, especially in an attacking sense. And you've got to wonder now, does Steve Clarke
02:01come under question, come on the firing line? Because I think the tactics of this tournament
02:08have been fairly negative or pragmatic, is maybe a better word.
02:14If you look over the three games that we've had, a 5-1 defeat to Germany, where I don't
02:19think we had a single shot on goal and we relied on an own goal to get a consolation.
02:23We then move on to Switzerland, where you can certainly see that the players tried their
02:27utmost. They left everything on the pitch in that match. Again, an own goal that was
02:33eventually then credited to Scott McTominay. But that shot was being saved fairly easily
02:40before it was deflected into the net. Can't remember us having too many other attempts
02:44on goal in that match either. And then we come to the game tonight, a must-win match
02:50where it took us until the 97th minute to have an effort on target from defender Grant Hanley.
02:59It's been a frustrating tournament for Scotland, hasn't it, Mark? Just that we went into this
03:04thinking, yep, we've got a chance of getting through to the next round, but it just feels
03:07like we haven't given ourselves any chance by not creating any chances.
03:11Yes, it is frustrating and it's funny you mention Grant Hanley. He's had two chances
03:16that are far better than any of the attacking players. He hit the post, obviously, against
03:21Switzerland from close range. I felt a bit sorry for Shea Adams. I've been doing the
03:25player ratings throughout this tournament and I've never really given him high marks,
03:29but it's not entirely his fault. He's isolated in that forward line and I don't think the
03:34midfield's given him enough. Billy Gilmore, a very tidy football player, I like him, but
03:39he does his best work a little bit deeper. I felt that potentially John McGinn was muted
03:45in this tournament. He had a really quiet tournament. There was little in the way of
03:49creativity and drive from that midfield. Is that down to the players or is that down to
03:54the system? Is it down to Steve Clarke? Ultimately, have these Scotland players peaked, has this
03:59group of players peaked when they beat Spain, which increasingly looks like a one-off result
04:04now? It's a one for debate and I think you wonder now, would a different manager with
04:11a different thought process potentially get more out of this group of players in an attacking
04:15sense? It's hard to argue against that because this Scotland team has been limited and it's
04:19not just in this tournament, Matthew. If you look at the last year, Scotland have been
04:24pretty poor. Some really, really disappointing results, not least Northern Ireland, a game
04:29which you and I were at. We were quite galling seeing how poor they were in that game and
04:36Finland as well when they threw away a 2-0 lead. These are warning signs that the Scotland team
04:40wasn't at its best. Steve Clarke's been on the job now for, what is it, five years, I think,
04:452019 and I do wonder, will some section of the Tartan army call for a change? It would be very
04:52cruel, you wonder. He's got a lot of credit in the bank. Mike Mulroney's said that recently,
04:56the SFA chief, but tournaments change perceptions and tournaments change how people think. I do
05:03wonder, I don't know if you feel the same way, Matthew, if Clarke might come under quite a lot
05:07of pressure for what's just happened? I have been backwards and forwards with Clarke all
05:13throughout his tenure, to be honest. There's been times, even in getting us to tournaments,
05:18where I've just not been convinced by his system, by his tactics, thinking that we could
05:25get more out of the group of players that he's got at his disposal.
05:30That being said, this tournament, he's been unfortunate and he's lost some key players
05:36in his system. The wing-backs are the most important players, they just are,
05:41that relies on them getting forward to create chances and Scotland have only had that on one
05:45side of the pitch in this tournament, through no fault of Anthony Ralston, who is not a wing-back
05:52in the sense that Scotland require for that role. Aaron Hickey and Andy Robertson just
05:59give us that double threat on either side that is needed for this system to work and it just
06:07hasn't worked this tournament at all, it just hasn't. I think Clarke should have figured that
06:11out by the third game, if I'm being honest. Even after the first game, we got the draw against
06:17Switzerland, but I felt he should have changed his system for that Switzerland match and gone
06:22a bit more positive to try and win that match, so we didn't have to rely on throwing everything
06:27at the last game in the group to get a victory, as we've always had to do over the years and
06:33falling short, as we have done once again. I think the SFA have got a decision to make now.
06:40Every manager, no matter how well they've done at club or country, reaches a point where they've
06:46taken a club or country as far as they can. Credit to Clarke, he brought in a system and
06:54a pragmatic approach that got Scotland hard to beat again for a while and it's been good enough
07:00to get us to major tournaments. Let's count our blessings because it's been a long time,
07:06most of my adult life that wasn't the case. If this is to be the end for Clarke, he can
07:11certainly go out with his head held high, but I think now is a time for another manager to see if
07:16they can just get something out of this group of players with a different approach. I don't think
07:21you'll be alone in that. I think that the counter argument to that is that Clarke has got a contract
07:27obviously, I think he's got it until the next World Cup, and as you say, he has got Scotland
07:32into two tournaments. He would also argue, and potentially his backers would argue, that Scotland
07:38have to be pragmatic because if they're not, they'll be carved open by teams. It's finding
07:46that balance, isn't it, by being solid because we've all said that defensively Scotland's back
07:51three is not a tournament level back three. At the same time, a lot of people say that our
07:58strikers are not tournament level strikers, it's the midfield that is the real strong point of the team.
08:05So I think he's caught, I don't think he really knows at times how to be more expansive because
08:11there is that fear that Scotland could get pulverised by even just reasonable teams at this
08:17level. If you look at the players that he's been bringing on attack, I mean, this is the thing
08:21tonight when you look at the bench, the options that are there. Okay, Shea Adams, I would have
08:25started Shea Adams, and I think he's a more, I think he's a superior striker to Lawrence Shankland
08:32in an all-round sense, but there was a lot of people wanting Shankland to start as well, to have
08:36two up there, and Hungary's defence, that's been their weak point too. We've watched them concede
08:42five goals in tournaments so far. Not many teams have conceded five goals across a tournament,
08:47and that'll be, I think, a regret for a lot of people, that there was never really a go at Hungary,
08:52and yeah, that could be what ends up costing him if there's a ground swell, and that's,
08:58do the SFA listen if there's a ground swell? It'll be fascinating to see the fallout. I mean,
09:01our man in Germany, Al Pitullo, who's in the bowels of the stadium in Stuttgart waiting for
09:07Steve Clarke to appear, he said in his piece, Steve Clarke will have to be braced for the backlash.
09:12How big is that backlash going to be? I think it'll probably be fairly sizeable, given we've
09:21went out the tournament with a bit of a whimper, if we're being honest, just with a lack of goal
09:25attempts. So frustrating to watch. And the system remained in place, from what I could see
09:33on the TV, until about the 87th minute, when I think a double change was made, and
09:40Ryan Christie and Lewis Morgan maybe came on? We're still playing the same way. We brought on
09:49Shankland. I can't remember what time of the match it was, maybe 20 minutes to go,
09:56but he didn't change the system. We're still playing with three centre-backs at that point,
10:01which I kind of had my head in my hands at that point, because why do we need three centre-halves
10:08when we're in a must-win match with 20 minutes to go when it's goalless?
10:13It was well beyond time to bring a defender off at that stage, and
10:17I just feel Clarke was almost willing another Norway, you know? Lightning struck in Oslo that
10:23day when, let's be honest, it was a fairly subpar Scotland performance up until the 87th,
10:3088th minute of that match, when everything turned around in what was probably one of the best
10:36conclusions to a Scotland match we've had. But that was a one-off. If we really want to
10:44be serious about going into the latter stages of tournaments, we need to be going
10:48into these must-win matches with the thought of winning them earlier than the 87th minute.
10:53Yeah, I think that's all valid. For this Scotland team, I mean, there isn't an awful lot there
11:00quality-wise in the final third, but I suppose you give it its chance. You could argue that Lewis
11:06Morgan, I mean, poor James Forrest as well. James Forrest who ended the season pretty well for
11:11Celtic, barely getting a sniff for Scotland. That's out of the debate. I think people wanted
11:17to see some of Tommy Conway, but I think Lawrence Shankland is well ahead of him. I think Shankland
11:22and Adams should have been given an opportunity to play more together as a pairing in warm-up
11:28matches to see if they could do the job, because it was going to become a point in this campaign
11:32where Scotland were going to need goals, regardless of how deep they went. There's so much you can go
11:40through. It's a very sore one for Scotland. There's just no two ways about it. I've not felt
11:47in my lifetime an excitement level this big around a Scotland chance to qualify. I remember the
11:52excitement level around France 98 in terms of Scotland being there and playing Brazil and
11:57obviously that Morocco game, there was a lot of expectation, but I think a lot of people
12:01really believed that Scotland were going to get through this group and it's not happened.
12:07And that's going to be a really difficult one for this national team to get over.
12:13You mentioned what's next. We're in Group A of the Nations League,
12:18some big teams coming to play Scotland. It's not going to get any easier, is it?
12:24No, it's not. Some of these matches may actually suit Clarke's more backs to the wall
12:30type of system. It's just winning these types of games against
12:37middle-of-the-range teams, we've always struggled to do it under Clarke.
12:41Especially away from Hampden, I think that's the thing. This Scotland team is almost unbackable
12:47since that Norway game away from Hampden. As you say, that Norway game was,
12:51I don't want to call it a freak or a fluke, because it definitely wasn't a fluke. Scotland
12:54deserved the win because they got the job done. But it goes against the grain of this Scotland
13:01team winning games away from home. Based on what we've seen in this tournament,
13:09and you'd have to fear for Scotland in Nations League Group A, the way we've went into this
13:14tournament, pulverised by Germany. If we're being brutally honest, we probably should have lost to
13:19Switzerland, given the chances they had in that match. But we battled hard and got the point.
13:28We were never in that game to win it tonight, until the very, very latter stages.
13:38I don't look forward to the Nations League A campaign with much optimism,
13:42based on what we've seen in this tournament. Perhaps a change in manager would change that.
13:45But like you've said, Clarke's got credit in the bank. And I think maybe once the soreness
13:52and the rawness of tonight ebbs away, maybe judgment will be slightly less harsh. But
13:59at this moment in time, it just feels a bit like the end of the road.
14:06Again, it's hard to argue. We have a lot of articles on our website and our printed products
14:13about the fallout and about where Scotland have been. I think the final word, Matthew,
14:18has to go to the fans. What a credit to Scotland they have been, the people that have travelled
14:24out there. I've not seen any reports of any trouble. It's all been revelry and good nature,
14:29and you don't see the mayor of a city like Cologne coming out and tweeting what she did
14:35without Scotland really impressing on that front. It's a real shame that the
14:40Tartan army will be leading this tournament.
14:44Certainly is. We'll take the consolation that we go home with the best fans trophy.
14:50We'll lift that one. Mark, thanks for joining me tonight, straight after the game. Obviously,
14:55we're both very disappointed with the outcome, and I'm sure all the viewers are too. But
15:00you'll be wanting to read all about it, I'm sure. The analysis from Alan Patil out in Stuttgart,
15:04the follow-up from Steve Clarke and his players in the post-mortem, which will continue throughout
15:10this week and beyond, no doubt. Mark, thanks for joining us,
15:14and we'll catch you on the next football show.