In those heady, optimistic days before the European Championships, Steve Clarke spoke of how he wanted to base the national team in Glasgow for their pre-tournament preparations to feel the mood of the nation.
This week, it appears both he and assistant manager John Carver have been walking around the city blindfolded with their fingers in their ears.
How else to explain the position that the fans weren’t actually disappointed with the poverty of Scotland quality and the paucity of attacking intent displayed by the national side over in Germany?
Clarke and his backroom team have done a fine job for Scotland over the piece and can be rightly proud of their achievements, but we are about to find out whether their rhetoric over the course of this week has been a product of defiance, wilful ignorance, or worse, a delusion that all is well.
It may be stretching it too far to say that the knives are now out for the Scotland manager, but the enthusiasm for the national side he has done so well to foster is in grave danger of ebbing away.
The Scots have won just one of their last 12 fixtures, and that was a right old slog against Gibraltar. There have been tough games within that run, but there are tough games to come, with Clarke’s men kicking off their first campaign in the A section of the Nations League against Poland at Hampden this evening. There is a trip to face Portugal in Lisbon on Sunday, while Croatia make up the section.
There may well be further pain ahead, then, and the question is just how much more the Tartan Army can take before questions are asked about the direction of travel? An unthinkable notion just a few short months ago.
Whether he wants to admit it or not, the failure of his team to show they had learned any of the lessons dished out to them at the previous Euros over the summer has bruised his standing, and in the current context, defeat against the Poles risks undoing a lot of Clarke’s good work.
Just a shade over 30,000 supporters trooped to Hampden for Clarke’s first match in charge against Cyprus back in 2019. It will be a great deal busier tonight, in part because many ticket packages were sold before the Euros, and in part because of the residual good will that Clarke has earned in that period from the Tartan Army.
How long that lasts though hinges on how his side react to the disappointment – for that is what it was – of the summer in these matches against formidable opposition. The opener against Poland then may well be a bigger match for both Clarke and Scotland than it may first appear.
“I think all the games are important,” Clarke said.
“Obviously, we have touched on the summer. It was disappointing but we have to move on.
“So, this is our first game. For the players that have been playing at the start of the season, they go to their club, they have a little freshness about them. For me, it's been a long summer, and I look forward to the game and see what we get from the players. I'm sure we will get a good reaction.”
To avoid any further bleeding of enthusiasm around the national side, will the players not also have to exhibit the lessons they have learned from games against higher ranked sides on the field, rather than just acknowledge them in the press, as they did prior to the Euros?
“We don't have a choice!” Clarke said.
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“It's not something I've thought about because we have to go and approach the games the way we're going to approach them. We have to try and improve, we have to try and get results and hopefully stay in the top flight of the Nations League.
“They're the games that are in front of us, you just have to approach the games with a positive mindset. And hopefully we can produce some performances that make people a little bit happier about the national team.”
What Clarke is hoping to offer the Tartan Army to achieve that is a transition towards a more attack-minded approach, though he certainly won’t be going gung-ho when mixing it with such company.
He has had more call-offs than normal. Even a retirement in the form of Celtic captain Callum McGregor. Such thing have not been typical of Clarke’s reign to this point.
He will hope a more front-foot approach allied to some fresh blood can do enough to blow away that whiff of despondency from around the national side, and counter the notion that this is a team descending from their peak.
“It's evolution, not revolution,” he said.
“Obviously this time we have a significant number of injuries that have probably impacted my squad selection a little bit, which means I've had to dip down into the U21 squad probably too many times, if I'm being honest. Because the U21s also have a couple of very important fixtures coming up.
“But that brings its own freshness. It's important, and I've mentioned it before, that we respect the core group that have managed to qualify for back-to-back European tournaments. But then within that core group you have to try and add a little bit more. And hopefully we can add something that makes us better.
“It's not going to happen overnight. It's not going to happen across the two games that we're going to play now.
“But I'm looking at this campaign in the Nations League and thinking this is the chance to try and evolve the group, so that when we do get to the World Cup qualifiers, we're in better shape, ready to go again, and ready to qualify for our third tournament out of four.”
