The head coach needs form players, not protected species. Red carpets should not be rolled out for time served.
McBurnie scored twice for Hull in a 2-1 win over Wrexham on Saturday, his goals ensuring that Hull, like Southampton, are in the play-offs for the Premier League. He’s now got 18 goals in 39 games, a run in all competitions that also includes seven assists. For a Scottish striker who missed two months of the campaign through injury, it’s an impressive return.
To drill down a little, this season, McBurnie has scored every 172 minutes for his club and has a goal from every 4.2 shots and a conversion rate of 24%.
Recently, he contacted Clarke to see if he had any hope of making the World Cup squad. The way McBurnie tells it, Clarke’s answer didn’t give him a whole lot of encouragement. The head coach can’t afford to be as dismissive as McBurnie made him sound.
Many of those who remember what McBurnie was like when he played for Scotland would, no doubt, agree with Clarke on this, if McBurnie’s recounting of their conversation is accurate. Under Alex McLeish and in the early games under Clarke, he had his chance and he didn’t take it.
Sixteen caps (seven starts) and no goal. More than that, in nearly 13 hours of action, Scotland only scored once while he was on the pitch. He was also once embroiled in controversy around his commitment to the cause.
It’s been five years since he last played for Scotland. That’s a fair old penance. Maybe he’s a better player and a better person than he was then. He’s certainly in a fantastic vein of form. In the final weeks of the Championship, with Hull fighting hard to make the play-offs, McBurnie stepped up and scored five goals in five games.
Nobody is expecting him to play for Scotland ever again, but if Clarke has already closed his mind to Stewart and McBurnie, as seems to be the case, then he’s ignoring two players performing with huge amounts of confidence.
The Scotland manager didn’t watch Southampton or Hull on Saturday, he watched Findlay Curtis playing and scoring for Kilmarnock against Dundee United.
Shankland (a goal every 152 minutes and a shot conversion rate of 17.7%) is a shoo-in for the squad and a front-runner for the team if form counts for anything. Hirst showed up well in the friendly against Ivory Coast, in the first half at any rate. He looked hungry and powerful, his appetite for work was unmissable.
He was the third Scot who scored in the Championship on Saturday, getting the first in Ipswich’s 3-0 win over QPR that guaranteed his club a place in the Premier League next season. He has 11 goals in 44 games for Ipswich.
Hirst scores every 202 minutes and has a conversion rate of 15.5%. Conway (the fourth Scot who scored on the final day of the Championship as Middlesbrough joined Southampton and Hull in the play-offs) and Bowie are both ahead of Adams and Dykes in these metrics.
And yet Adams and Dykes are Clarke’s go-to strikers. Adams is a certainty to travel and it’s almost impossible to imagine the manager going without Dykes regardless of what he’s been doing in club football, which is not a lot. He’s scored seven goals in 43 games this season for Birmingham and Charlton. He’s a big character and a positive presence in the squad but in football terms the case for his inclusion looks desperately weak if you’re going solely on what’s happening in the here and now.
Luckily for him, his bid for inclusion is probably compelling in the only place that truly matters – in the mind of the Scotland manager.
In the stats, Stewart, McBurnie and Shankland are Clarke’s most in-form strikers. The probability is that In Clarke’s estimation Stewart and McBurnie sit about seventh and eighth in the pecking order, if he’s even noticed them at all.
Bowie probabaly won’t go either. Since joining from Hibs he has scored three goals in 11 games for Verona – 50% of their total in that run – whereas Adams has five in 27. Bowie’s Verona are 19th in Serie A, Adams’ Torino are 13th.
Clarke has done a terrific job as Scotland manager and is entitled to select whoever he wants. There’s a weight of evidence urging him to think beyond the usual tried and tested, though. He has options, should he decide to consider them.
