Scotland 'might have to suffer' short-term to reap long-term benefits after hitting Nations League reset button

Scotland Assistant Head Coach John Carver (L) and Head Coach Steve Clarke oversee training | SNS Group

John Carver has acknowledged the need for Scotland to return to winning ways but has insisted any short-term pain from competing with Pot 1 teams in the Nations League will only aid the development of players within the international set-up.

Scotland boss Steve Clarke hasn’t had his problems to seek on the injury front in recent months and was rocked once again by the withdrawal of Norwich City goalkeeper Angus Gunn and Celtic left-back Greg Taylor for the upcoming double-header with Croatia and Portugal. Those woes have only added to the disappointment over a string of challenging results.

The Scots have only won once in their previous 14 outings - a 2-0 friendly success against Gibraltar - and now prepare to travel to Zagreb on Nations League duty without a host of key players, including the likes of vice-captain John McGinn, Kieran Tierney and Scott McKenna.

It is a dilemma that has left assistant coach Carver adopting a no pain no gain approach in order to position the country for success in the future.

Scotland players take part in a training session at Lesser Hampden | SNS Group

“Of course we accept that,” Carver admitted when asked about the Scots’ dismal run of form. “But let's not forget there's been a lot of good things, and you get credit when you do well, and you've got to take a little bit of criticism when you're not getting the results. It's a result business, I get that. But we are looking at it longer term, and we're looking to the future. And we see what we're trying to do to get to where we want to get to. We might have to take a little bit of pain and a little bit of hurt now, but hopefully, like I say, it might put us in good stead.”

“Obviously you want to win games, but I think if your performances are right and you're trying to do the right things, and I think you see what we're trying to do and there's a clear identity there of how we're going to play in and out of possession, I think we continue with that. And you'd like to think that results will come.

“Let's not forget we are in a difficult group, we understand that, but that's because of the success we've had getting promoted and coming up against these teams. We will be better, I guarantee you we will be better in the long term for this. We might have to suffer now, but for the future, and we know what's around the corner, yes the Nations League is very important, but we've got that World Cup coming up with the draw in December, so all our planning and preparation is towards that.

“In a team environment, and you've built a team environment at an international level, when you go so long, one win in 14 or whatever it may be, that's bound to affect players. It affects everybody for sure, but I think we can take so much encouragement from our last two performances. Nobody expected us to go to Portugal, Lisbon in that arena and perform the way we did, take the lead, and we should have really got a result out of it. We should have at least got a draw, but we didn't.

“But we've got to take encouragement from that, so it's no good thinking about what happened five, six, seven games ago, it's about now and what we've done in the last camp with a newish type group of players. We pressed the reset button. It's about taking that positivity from the performance and what we did in and out of possession to the next two games, or the next four games in the Nations League. So, although all the players sat in the dressing room were so disappointed, and so were we, but there was a lot of good things we could take from it.”

Liverpool’s Andy Robertson and Scott McTominay of Napoli were not involved in training at Lesser Hampden on Tuesday having been granted an extra day of recovery before joining up with their international team mates tomorrow. Hearts striker Lawrence Shankland was among a small group of players present but not participating and being assessed by the medical team following his involvement in Sunday’s Premiership defeat against Aberdeen.