Lady Luck sticks her stiletto where it hurts for Steve Clarke but he has one Scotland defence left – Keith Jackson

The Scotland boss is in the midst of a run of just one win in 15 games

Steve Clarke must have spent the entire three hour flight back to Glasgow on Saturday night wondering how many times one campaign can boot him square in the balls.

Because despite what anyone may say about the Scotland boss and this excruciating, eye-watering run of recent results, there can now be no more doubt that Lady Luck is also taking considerable delight in sticking her stiletto right where it hurts. Yes, one win from 15 games is the kind of record which would get most managers the sack at this level of the international game.

And, undoubtedly, there will be accusations of industrial scale turd polishing made against anyone who argues that there have been signs of encouragement to take from another three defeats on the bounce in this new Nations League campaign. Such is life in a business where often it is better to be lucky than good. But that would be to ignore what we have seen with our own eyes throughout this albeit traumatic experience in the top flight of European competition.

Two last minute losses suffered against Poland and Portugal, followed by a VAR intervention to deny Scotland what would have been a richly deserved draw with the last kick of the ball in Zagreb at the weekend. That alone paints a picture of Clarke’s rotten misfortune. And yes, the sooner Scotland are relegated out of this elite level and returned to a safer, less punishing place the better it will be for his stats column.

But it doesn’t come close to explaining the steps Clarke and his players have been taking together ever since being oxtered out of Germany this summer as the most powderpuff performers at the European Championships. It seems fair to say Clarke didn’t much enjoy the volley of criticism that came his way after that failure to land any meaningful blows on the big stage.

Deep down, he probably silently resented being questioned and having his own part in it picked apart in the public eye, given that he has done so much to turn Scotland’s footballing fortunes around. Clarke may even have felt as if the entire country was downright ungrateful for the work he has done in qualifying for two successive major finals, after more than two decades without reaching a single one of these spectacular events before he came riding to the rescue.

And yet, even if he was simmering away inside at what was being said about him and the disrespect attached to it all, he listened to it. He took it on board.

And he resolved to do something about it. That’s been evident since this latest campaign kicked off at home to the Poles and the Portuguese last month.

Having stubbornly refused to release the handbrake from his team over the summer, there was a new sense of freedom and attacking aggression about the way Scotland approached that opening double header. Clarke said as much too when he admitted to having to adjust the mindset within his squad as well as tweaking the tactical blueprint for this, the next stage of development.

Had he pigheadedly refused to change his ways or to accept the need to deploy something more bold, adventurous and exciting, then it would be impossible to mount a case for his defence three games into this latest section. The results alone would have done for him had his side been stuck in a joyless cycle of delivering more-of-the-same. And rightly so.

But that’s not what the manager and his players have been serving up over the last month or so. The formation and strategy has changed, the level of performance has increased accordingly and, most noticeable of all, the psychological approach is night and day to the one adopted over the summer, when Scotland’s players stopped just short of running around Germany throwing their hands in the air and screaming, ‘Not the face! Not the face!’.

Yes, the beatings may have continued and the scores on the doors may not have changed all that much. If anything they’re getting even more damning than they were before.

And, true, there is a very real possibility - perhaps even a strong probability - that Clarke and his players will ultimately be relegated from League A having failed to register a single point on the board and on the back of a run which, by then, will add up to just one win from 18 games.

If that’s indeed how it all ends up then there is likely to be a considerable clamour for his head before the start of the qualification campaign for the next World Cup in two years’ time. But, as understandable and as inevitable as that blood lust would be, it would also constitute a dangerous overreaction as well as a refusal to take all factors into full consideration. And yes, that includes this recent streak of monumental misfortunes and plain old bad luck.

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It’s not simply a matter of Clarke convincing himself that he’s the right man for the job and that his strategy for the next step is the right one. The likes of Berti Vogts, George Burley and Craig Levein would doubtless have felt the same way before they were escorted off the premises for the good of the nation and for their own wellbeing. But a sense of deep delusion had set in by then.

It simply doesn’t feel the same way with Clarke and for one crucial reason - unlike the others - he’s not the only one in the country who believes in what he’s trying to achieve. On the contrary, Scotland’s performances in the Nations League suggest that the players have re-engaged with their own manager and that they agree with his revised methods.

They too may have left Germany in the summer wondering if his time in charge had come and gone and perhaps they would have been ready to embrace change at that moment, in order that they might be better able and more free to express themselves under the next man.

But Clarke himself appears to have discovered the key to unlock Scotland’s from those shackles. He can only hope he’s not left it too late for his luck to turn accordingly.

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