Following Lawrence Shankland’s obvious opportunity to equalize the score for Scotland against the Netherlands in an ultimately brutal 4-0 friendly loss in Amsterdam, Steve Clarke has backed the Hearts striker.
Scotland was the superior side for the opening hour of play, as even Dutch manager Ronald Koeman conceded.
The hosts scored three more goals after Tijjani Reijnders gave them a first-half lead against the run of play. The Scots performed well for the most part but suffered from late concentration errors.
On minute sixty-two, Shankland had just goalkeeper Mark Flekken to beat after Mats Wiefer was robbed by Scott McTominay on the outside of his own area. The striker for Hearts hoisted the ball over Flekken, only to see it go over after hitting the top of the bar. If he had scored, the score would have been 1-1. In addition, he watched a header loop over earlier in an otherwise successful 67-minute performance.
Clarke described him as a striker. “People tend to overlook the fact that strikers both score and miss a lot of goals.” You have to act appropriately and be at the correct place. Lawrence will eventually score goals. He didn’t disappoint in my opinion; I think his performance today was solid all over.
When it was still goalless, Flekken also tipped Ryan Christie’s header into the bar. Clarke said, “We had the same number of shots (13) as the Netherlands.” “We weren’t clinical enough; they were. We are able to work on it.
“It could be a completely different night if we win 1-0 thanks to Ryan Christie’s header, but we can’t just sit here and talk about it—we need to get on the field and play.” We’ll pick up our lessons and go on.
Clarke brought out the sobering statistic that shows Scotland has let up 18 goals in their previous six games. It has to be admitted that both teams were substituting often throughout the three of the four losses in Amsterdam. As the first match of Euro 2024 between Germany and his squad draws nearer, he pushed his team to play more streetwise, beginning on Tuesday night at Hampden against Northern Ireland.
He said, “We have to end the streak of defeats.” “We need to end that on Tuesday night since we haven’t won in six games. It’s a lot of goals, and you won’t win games if you let up that many. We are aware that we need to become more focused. It was 1-0 for seventy minutes.
We should reflect on how we responded to the second goal. How we commit, how we ensure that we are really difficult to defeat in the last twenty minutes. Even if the result is 2-0, it still ends 2-0. When facing the best teams, we need to be a little more streetwise, and the Netherlands is a good team—don’t undervalue them.
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