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Euro 2024: Scotland still have work to do

Scotland Team

Scotland have secured a place in Germany with two games to spare but face a tricky test in a country where they have historically struggled, losing on their past two visits.

Clarke’s side are also on a run of three straight defeats.

“Listen, we want to get back to winning ways,” said Clarke.

“It’s not very often in the reign I’ve had, apart from the early stages, that we’ve had consecutive defeats like we’ve had recently so it’d be nice to think in the remaining two games we can pick up more points.

“What’s past is the past, there’s nothing we can do to affect that. All we can do is affect the future, the next game. When you go away from home against a team like Georgia it’s going to be a difficult environment, it’s going to be a difficult game for us because I think they’re a very good side.

“The one game they lost heavily was to Spain and that’s a little bit of an anomaly in their fixtures recently because all their games have been very competitive and we expect another one tomorrow night.

“I’ve always said we want to get as high a points tally as possible. We’ve two more games to try and do that.”

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Scotland’s defeats came in testing friendlies against England and France alongside their competitive loss in Spain. Two wins over Georgia and Norway would guarantee a pot two place in the draw for Euro 2024 – something Clarke sees as over the horizon right now.

“The idea with the two friendly matches against England and France was to test yourself against the best, see how you measure up and obviously with the results in both games we still have a bit of work to do,” he said.

“We just stay focused, respect every opponent and try to improve all the time. Next summer will take care of itself.

“At the moment the objective is to get as many points as we can in this qualifying group, so questions about Germany, I’ll answer them, or will start to answer them better in March.”

That said, places in the squad remain up for grabs and injuries to key players present opportunities to stake a strong case in remaining fixtures for inclusion in the final squad.

Captain Andrew Robertson as well as fellow regulars Kieran Tierney, Angus Gunn, Aaron Hickey and Che Adams are among those sidelined.

Clarke believes there is strength in depth as he approaches his 50th match in charge of the national side, something he has tried to identify since taking on the role.

“I think over the course of my tenure I’ve always tried to look a little bit deeper,” said the 60-year-old.