Parken pride as Scots find right gear for a point

STEVE CLARKE took one of the biggest managerial gambles of his Scotland career here in Copenhagen last night - then insisted he would quit the job if he didn't have the balls for it.

- BY SCOTT MCDERMOTT

Clarke left £25million wonderkid Ben Gannon Doak and Napoli's Billy Gilmour on his bench for the World Cup opener against top seeds Denmark knowing he risked a furious fallout if his game plan had gone wrong.

The national boss also threw in Lyndon Dykes for a first start in more than two years as he ripped up his tactical blueprint to send his side out in a 4-4-2 formation.

And the plan paid off big time as Scotland shocked the Group C favourites by claiming a point - and narrowly passed up chances to turn a 0-0 draw into an away win.

Clarke and his players will now head to Hungary to take on Belarus on Monday, hoping to add three more points and win over a support which reacted angrily to the initial news of his starting line up.

Boss Clarke said: “That's my job as head coach - to make these calls. You have to look at the game, the opposition and you have to decide what might be the best way to help the players to get the result.

“If I'm not brave I might as well not be in the job.

“Obviously physicality was a big thing for us because we know the physicality of the Danish side.

“We also identified one or two things that might help us to take the team up the pitch. Sometimes it did, sometimes it didn’t and we had to defend as we did.

“I think I've always tried to show flexibility even if I don't always get the headlines about that.

“Sometimes you've got to change to suit the way the opposition play and it worked for us tonight.”

But Clarke admitted afterwards to fearing the worst when VAR ordered a potential red card review for sub Max Johnston's handball just moments after he had replaced Aaron Hickey at right back.

It could have seen Scotland reduced to ten men at a crucial stage in the second half and the manager conceded: “Yes, just a little bit.

“We'd had a look. It came off his arm really high up and then you could see quite clearly there was a little nudge in the back.