Steve Clarke defended over World Cup conduct as EPL boss names Scotland's 'biggest problem'

Clarke, 62, claimed his side had “made it difficult for themselves” and claimed he “didn’t want to think” about his side’s chances of qualifying for the last 32 of the World Cup as one of the best third-placed teams and the waiting game to see if they could still advance.

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The frustrated Scotland boss has come under scrutiny after offering up the blunt responses, before walking away from his live TV interview with BBC’s Eilidh Barbour after just 23 seconds following the damaging 3-0 loss in Miami on Wednesday night. However, Everton manager David Moyes has defended Clarke’s conduct following the Group C defeat.

“This is something I could talk about for a long time,” Moyes told TalkSPORT. “Because I’m involved with the LMA and we see the managers. All the managers are put out very quickly after the game, very emotional. Steve worked so hard, got to the competition and then obviously he’s disappointed with the result with how it came at the end.

“Then they’re asked to come out and answer questions and be elegant in what we say. I think sometimes we’re better off hearing how the managers really feel. Steve showed it. I don’t think it’s a good thing to walk away and walk out on it. The journalists also have to ask difficult questions and ask the questions people want to hear. But sometimes the managers don’t want to answer them, because we’re hurting. We know the people it is going to affect. I don’t think he could have said an awful lot more than he was disappointed, to be honest.

Moyes, who was tipped as a potential replacement for Clarke should he opt to leave Scotland following their early exit at the European Championship in Germany two years ago, believes that the national team boss has done well to even qualify for the World Cup this summer, claiming that the squad’s quality and lack of promising young talent coming through is hampering his ability to progress further.

“The biggest thing missing is quality,” said Moyes. “I don’t think Scotland has the quality at the moment to be able to compete. I’m not saying on the odd day you can’t beat these teams and get good results, as we did with Denmark. But generally, Scotland has been short of that level.

“Steve has got us to three major competitions with, what I think, is not a great deal of quality. How is Scotland going to get better? Who is coming through? How do we improve? I’m really fortunate that I work in England, where there’s an incredible amount of talent on the pitch, players coming from overseas and a lot of the young English boys coming through. In Scotland, we just don’t have that amount of players coming through.

“It isn’t a lack of organisation. One of my members of staff [at Everton] is there in Alan Irvine, and they’re good coaches. I actually think we are missing athleticism, stature, and speed. Which is a big thing that is missing, and I think it’s missing from Scottish culture generally. We don’t have that, and that plays a big part. We lack speed at the back. But we have to hope the games go our way. It sounded negative coming back from the game; they didn’t give much hope. And it does look quite difficult with the results now.

“Scotland have a bundle of midfield players; we missed Billy Gilmour, but the goalkeeping and forward players are a problem. The top centre forwards are scoring goals in the competition, but Scotland had a problem going into the tournament. The goalkeeping situation is difficult. Going forward, at the moment, there are just not loads of players coming through.

“We’ll probably have about 70 per cent of players from the game last night going into the next tournament in a couple of years, and hopefully we can try and find a way of adding to it. We need more goals, more chances; we didn’t make many opportunities in any of the games.”