Steve Clarke's letter from America and frivolous phrase is sad end to fine reign - there is no clear successor

The outgoing manager might therefore have enjoyed the thought that the statement announcing his departure was timed with such clinical precision.

No sooner had Ghana’s match with Croatia concluded without them posting the requisite three-goal victory – they in fact lost 2-1 - than an SFA statement landed announcing Clarke was leaving the post of Scotland manager.

A win for the Black Stars by a three-goal margin would have kept Scotland’s faint World Cup pulse beating for at least another couple of hours. Most Scots viewed Ghana's eventual defeat as a mercy. It signalled the SFA pushing a button after three days of non-communication at the team's base camp in Charlotte, North Carolina. The squad might very well have already been on the way home.

Clarke, who had found himself under increasingly vitriolic attack from certain sections of the media, likely relished the chaos he knew he had sparked among sports reporters in the city as they scrambled to react to the news long after newspapers back home had gone to print.

It was a lightning strike similar to the one that forced nearly all of Charlotte indoors on Saturday evening as an electric storm passed overhead. Four more years, the length of the new contract Clarke signed as recently as 28 May, had in fact lasted barely four more weeks.

All the talk from around that time, including Clarke’s contention that he was motivated to stay by a desire to implement the long-term change he felt was needed, had been rendered completely absurd.

Ian Maxwell spoke at the time about how ridiculous it was to view the new contract as the SFA being cast as a hostage to fortune. The SFA chief executive was asked what might happen if Scotland lost the opening match against Haiti, which nearly everyone viewed as a must-win game.

Maxwell scoffed at the thought that a single match might determine a manager's fate. “How is it a gamble to give a guy who had taken us to three out of four major finals a new contract?” he asked. “That is a problem with football. Everybody is instant. They say, ‘That manager has lost a game, let’s sack him’.”

This was Clarke’s decision to quit Scotland

That wasn’t, he said, how the SFA worked. “It’s pretty staggering for anyone to say that giving him a new contract is a gamble,” he said. Clarke oversaw a welcome, if nervy, victory over Haiti before Scotland came unstuck against Morocco and Brazil, which was hardly unexpected. He is the first Scotland manager to leave his post during a World Cup since Andy Beattie in 1954.

It’s not clear what financial package has been agreed with the outgoing manager, if any. It’s understood it was Clarke’s decision and his alone to leave so soon after signing a new long-term deal.

“While emotions are raw following our elimination, I genuinely believe if we continue to qualify regularly for these tournaments, we will inevitably break the glass ceiling of reaching the knockout phase,” Clarke said in an unusually long, detailed statement that had clearly taken some time to prepare. It still caught many unaware.

Clarke’s silence and indeed the silence of the entire camp since Wednesday’s 3-0 defeat by Brazil began to make a bit of sense. Consigned to their five-star hotel eyrie as their World Cup lifeline grew ever fainter, it was hard to establish what was happening within the Scotland camp. Meanwhile, anger was steadily building back home and among those supporters still making their way back from the United States.

Clarke seems to have concluded that it isn’t worth the hassle any longer. It’s a sad end to the most successful Scotland managerial reign of all time.

The “bye-bye Scotland” headline on the announcement struck a needlessly frivolous tone. After all, it referenced Clarke's “bye-bye Rangers” comment made on the pitch at Rugby Park after a win over the Ibrox side that secured European football for Kilmarnock in 2019. This meant many Rangers fans found it hard to get on board the Scotland bandwagon while Clarke was at the helm.

Others, too, found it increasingly difficult although as ever, social media drove the ‘Clarke out’ agenda. It was not possible to go online without seeing the manager referred to as "Jurassic Clarke". The 62-year-old was accused in some quarters of holding the team back. Really? Three major finals out of four is an unprecedented run. Be careful what you wish for. Maxwell sought to underline Clarke’s success since being appointed.

“From starting as a pot four team in 2019 to topping our World Cup qualifying group, he has more than delivered on the remit to take Scotland back to a major tournament,” he said in the statement.

Clarke was otherwise handed the floor to state his own case. He was rightly given the space to outline his achievements in an open letter to supporters.

It wasn’t the letter from America many had imagined being sent home at the start of this adventure, when everything felt so buoyant and “No Scotland, No Party, Steve Clarke’s Tartan Army!” rang out from every street corner in Boston, or so it seemed.

The Scotland fans will now have to change their tune. Clarke has gone. The worry is that there’s no obvious candidate to replace him.

Derek McInnes, the one-time prime contender, is now ensconced in his dream job at Rangers. Former Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou has been linked with the post, which wouldn’t, one imagines, help get Rangers fans back on side when it comes to Scotland. The last thing the country needs now is a divisive appointment.

The SFA might look further afield, their horizons having widened during this near three week-stint at world football’s top table. It was supposed to be a trip on which history was made, as Scotland sought to qualify for the second stage for the first-ever time. Instead, it marks the end of the line for someone who, one suspects, will prove very difficult to replace.