Steve Clarke 'not bothered' about red-hot Scotland talking point as another friendly confirmed

The latest loss – 1-0 against Ivory Coast in Liverpool – means Scotland now have only two games to work on improvements before their tournament gets underway against Haiti in Boston on 13 June. Clarke afterwards confirmed that Scotland will play Bolivia in New Jersey on 6 June. Their opponents had initially been rumoured to be Peru and then Venezuela but Clarke was happy to confirm the game against a team ranked 76th in the world. Scotland have already scheduled a World Cup farewell against Curacao at Hampden on 30 May.

The manager is keen for talk about his contract to end. Clarke has only agreed a deal to the end of the World Cup and he stated just over two weeks ago that he wanted the situation clarified before the tournament begins. But successive 1-0 defeats to Japan and Ivory Coast have underlined the need for no further distractions as Scotland prepare to return to the World Cup for the first time since 1998.

Asked if he wanted a new contract agreed before the squad next meets up in May, he answered: “No. I want to concentrate on the World Cup. I’m sure if something happens you guys will know. If it doesn’t happen I’m not bothered. I want to get to the World Cup. I want to be in the right frame of mind. I want my players to be in the right frame of mind. What happens will happen. Finished. I’m not talking about my contract anymore.”

Scotland have failed to score in over 180 minutes of friendly football against admittedly very good opposition. “Another defeat and I never like losing,” Clarke said after Nicolas Pepe’s early goal proved decisive at Everton’s Hill Dickinson Stadium in front of a 33,024 crowd. “I don’t think we deserved to lose.”

Scotland played a 3-5-2 system in the hope of quelling an athletic Ivory Coast’s physical threat. The African side were unsettled by Scotland in the opening ten minutes but asserted themselves following Pepe’s goal and hit the post late on. Although they pressed in the second half, with Ipswich Town striker George Hirst getting into good positions, Scotland lacked cutting edge.

“I thought we started really well in the game,” said Clarke. “Bright, clever, trying to get forward and I think our system caused them problems to start with.

“We lose a really poor goal in the counter attack and the organisation behind that attack was not right. Good teams will punish you and that’s what happened. Ivory Coast are a good team and they punished us with the counter attack. Our reaction to going 1-0 down wasn’t good. We lost control of the game when we should have kept control of the game because we started well. That’s something we need to get better at.

“Second half I thought we were excellent, we dominated the game, had more of the ball and looked a threat,” he added. “We got a number of balls into the box but I thought they defended very well second half and we asked them to defend very well. They did that."

Although there was some booing at the end, Clarke was unmoved. “I think the more you speak about it the more you encourage people to be negative so I would rather not talk about it,” he said. “I thought my team was really positive and that’s what I take out of the game.”

He stressed that he was “encouraged” by the way Scotland re-adapted to a 3-5-2 formation. “I liked the shape,” he said. “I do like playing with a front two and sometimes that is difficult because I have so many good midfield players and you are always tempted to try and get them into your side. I’ve said before that a back five is a system that qualified us for two tournaments and then everyone suddenly became really negative about it.

“When I have the key personnel that I can put on the pitch a back five with the way we play is a really good system for us. Whether we play with a back five, one striker and two off the top. It’s a system that works for us.”

He praised the contribution of Hirst, who started alongside Che Adams in attack. “He came in, was bright,” he said. “Needs a goal. Would like a goal. But he tried to score. He has had good efforts and tried to get efforts away. That is a good thing for a striker.”