There is a notion that Scotland’s team is packed with quality, but that argument doesn’t hold a lot of water, if you’re being brutally honest.
This is a squad full of endeavour. There are good to very good players sprinkled around the team, but the collective is decidedly average, at best, in the rarefied air of a World Cup.
This is not to denigrate players who have bust a gut for their country; it’s an attempt to explain the real world they live in. Angus Gunn can’t get a game for Nottingham Forest. Aaron Hickey is an excellent player, but he’s jinxed by injury. Nathan Patterson struggles to get game time with Everton. Jack Hendry just finished seventh in the Saudi Pro League. Grant Hanley, for all his fantastic resilience, is not a high-end international defender.
After an error against Morocco, Hanley was replaced by Scott McKenna against Brazil. McKenna made a catastrophic error after seven minutes. He’s a good player who has just won the Croat league with Dinamo Zagreb.
The number of Croatia-based players in their World Cup squad: two. The number who have featured in games so far: one.
In last season’s Europa League, Dinamo finished 23rd in the group of 36, so at a higher level, McKenna’s team struggles because his team, frankly, is not top European class.
Kieran Tierney is a terrific footballer but injuries curtail his influence. He’s played one 90-minute game all season. Andy Robertson has been magnificent for many years at Liverpool but last season the majority of his Premier League appearances were off the bench.
Scott McTominay has been much talked about. The talisman who was not very talismanic when going up against the really big boys in midfield.
McTominay is capable of wondrous individual moments and is, unquestionably, one of the real stars of Serie A. The issue here is how good is Serie A?
Napoli were champions of Italy two seasons ago but in the Champions League last campaign they won two games from eight and finished 30th in the table. Serie A, and Italian football in general, is not what it used to be.
The Azzurri have failed to qualify for the past three World Cups. Expecting McTominay to light things up in America just because he lights things up for Napoli was too big a task for him.
John McGinn is beloved. He’s done so much in the Scotland jersey, but the “Super John McGinn” song has now become more of a plaintive cry than a statement of fact. McGinn needs strong players around him in order to excel, as he does as Aston Villa’s hugely respected leader.
Clarke played him on the left – not his best position – because he needed Ben Gannon-Doak’s pace on the right. Gannon-Doak is a really exciting prospect but his elevated status with Scotland belies the fact that he’s been injured and has only played 150 minutes for Bournemouth this season.
Ryan Christie, another admirable player picked out of his best club position, has started only nine league games for Bournemouth with another 17 appearances as substitute.
The impressive Lewis Ferguson was probably the pick of Scotland’s players in America despite not always being a guaranteed starter for Bologna.
None of Scotland’s strikers landed a blow, in part because they had precious little to feed on. The ones that played put in hard but fruitless shifts. Not one of these guys lacked for effort. They were clearly desperate to do well.