Steve Clarke takes swipe at critics as he hails backing of 'realistic' Scotland fans

Steve Clarke took a swipe at his critics after Scotland defeated Armenia 4-1 in the Nations League on Tuesday evening.

Scotland ace Stuart Armstrong, right, celebrates with Che Adams after scoring his side's first goal during the Nations League clash against Armenia. Picture: AP

Smarting from the 3-0 humiliation in Ireland on Saturday, Clarke’s men overcame an early deficit to win 4-1 against the nine-man hosts as Stuart Armstrong twice got on the scoresheet before John McGinn and Che Adams made sure of the points.

The defeat in Dublin, coupled with the World Cup play-off semi-final loss to Ukraine, had supporters questioning the manager’s position. The national team boss had no time for those doubters as he responded to a question regarding McGinn’s goal feeding back into the “feelgood factor”.

“The realistic fans are fantastic. The ones that come and travel all the way over here, I’ve got nothing but praise for them,” he said. “I’m glad they saw a good performance. But the realistic fans know what we’re trying to do. The rest of it is outwith our control."

Clarke did, however, admit that the international camp overall – which saw Scotland win two and lose two of their four games – wasn’t good enough.

"It was a difficult schedule for the players, it was difficult. But we haven't made excuses until now, there's no excuses for the two games that we lost,” he said.

"One win or two wins against Armenia are not going to make this international camp a good camp because it wasn't.

"We failed on our primary objective which was to get to the World Cup and we had a really bad performance in Dublin which put us on the back foot again. It's nice to bounce back tonight but there's work to do."

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