\n<\/p>\n
Two summers ago, Scotland’s Euros opener proved to be one of their biggest letdowns under Clarke – a 5-1 loss to hosts Germany.<\/p>\n
“We have to remember how bad that felt,” the head coach says.<\/p>\n
Clarke believes that crushing defeat put Scotland “on the back foot” for the remainder of their tournament, which again ended at the group stage.<\/p>\n
“This time, we have to make sure we start on the front foot,” he insists.<\/p>\n
On the evidence of the Scots’ warm-up displays, there are signs they can achieve that against a similarly-ranked nation this weekend.<\/p>\n
The recent adoption of an aggressive 4-4-2 shape with two strikers playing centrally and direct winger Ben Doak operating off the right feeds into the idea of a “different Steve Clarke”, although he suggested he has been unfairly “tagged with a label”.<\/p>\n
“I think I’ve shown consistently throughout my time that I’m prepared to try something different,” says Clarke, who feels he has his best depth across a Scotland squad.<\/p>\n
“Going into this tournament, the something different was to think about maybe playing 4-4-2 to see how it worked.<\/p>\n
“What people don’t understand is when you’re at a club you can work on a system for a long period of time and have a lot of training sessions on it. When you’re in an international camp you don’t have that.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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