Steve Clarke says he has “fantastic problems” in terms of selection after Scotland concluded their World Cup warm-up matches with an emphatic win over Bolivia.
Clarke started Scotland’s final friendly before they get their tournament underway against Haiti in Boston next week with two strikers and it paid dividends with Lawrence Shankland’s early opener and a Che Adams brace coming either side of a Scott McTominay strike in the 4-0 win.
There were good performances all over the pitch, however, as Scotland’s players looked to impress before that World Cup opener and Clarke admits he has welcome selection conundrums ahead of next week.
“We’ve got fantastic problems,” he said. “Really good first half, then I turned round to my bench and the changes we were making were good. You lose a little bit of the rhythm of the game when you are making so many changes, both sides.
Lawrence Shankland celebrates with Che Adams and Scott McTominay for Scotland
“But the boys who went in, their priority was not to concede because we wanted a clean sheet. It’s been a little while since we had a clean sheet so it is nice to get that.
“Goals will be important, obviously we get told that we don’t score enough goals but that is back-to-back fours. It’s about the creation of the chances, the creation of the chances was good tonight and if you create good chances then we have got players on the pitch who will score goals.”
Scotland’s performance was all the more impressive given the stifling heat in Harrison, New Jersey where the game was played, but Clarke was buoyed by the reaction of his players to that and says the group is ready to get the tournament underway.
Scotland players cool down during a water break against Bolivia
“We are as well prepared as we can be at this stage,” he said. “Obviously, you don’t always get everything you want in terms of preparation. We went to Florida for heat and humidity and we got the humidity but a lot of rain. We probably didn’t get the heat we expected but we got that heat in the first half today and I thought we handled it well.
“As much as we have done up until now then we have prepared as well as we can and we will prepare well this week and make sure we start the tournament well.”
Clarke refused to get too carried away with the fine performance and result, however, reminding his players that they felt confident heading into Euro 2024 before a disappointing tournament in Germany.
Steve Clarke speaks to Ben Gannon-Doak during Scotland’s win over Bolivia
“We’ve obviously won a couple of games going into the tournament and it is always important that the players are feeling good about themselves,” he said.
“But, to be honest, they felt good about themselves going into Germany so I wouldn’t read too much into it!”
