Oliver Burke burst on to the international scene as a £15million signing for RB Leipzig in 2016. Now 27, the winger earned the last of his 13 caps four years ago.
Jack Harper was the subject of brief outrage when former Scotland Under-19s coach Ricky Sbragia described the one-time Real Madrid starlet as a ‘luxury player’.
A decade since his last appearance in the Scotland youth set-up, he now plays for Linense in the fourth tier of Spanish football.
Barry Bannan? Fourteen years have passed since a stand-out performance in a 3-0 win over the Faroe Islands at Pittodrie sparked a wave of excitable coverage. Now a veteran at Sheffield Wednesday, the midfielder earned a respectable 27 caps, but made his last appearance for the national team under Gordon Strachan in 2017.
When it comes to Ben Doak, then, Steve Clarke has a balance to strike. It’s too early to say if the teenager will go on to become a Scotland fixture or another one of the players who failed to live up to exorbitant early hype. How Clarke delivers the former and not the latter will be a test of his years of managerial experience.
After one win in 15 games, there’s a natural tendency to seek light at the end of the tunnel. And a display of attacking promise in Saturday’s latest loss to Croatia felt like Doak extending a straw for the nation to clutch at.
Doak was an eye-catching performer against Croatia, giving Man City’s Gvardiol a tough night
Steve Clarke congratulates his livewire winger on a fine evening’s work in Zagreb
Doak steps to it in training alongside international team-mates Irving, Dykes and Souttar
Few dispute that a player of international potential lurks inside an 18-year-old frame. While his pace and direct running clearly worried the Croats, however, his final ball left room for improvement.
Breathless reviews of his performance should also recognise that building up players like Burke, Bannan and John Fleck too soon did them few favours.
Should Doak need any pointers on dealing with the pitfalls of youthful exposure, he could always speak to Scotland team-mate Ryan Gauld. Branded the ‘Mini Messi’ at Dundee United, the 28-year-old finally won the first of his three caps last month.
‘You’ve always got the balancing act,’ acknowledged Clarke yesterday. ‘We know Ben is a talent. We want him here for the next 15 years, not the next 15 months.
‘As I always say, don’t put too much pressure on him — he’s just a young man. He will make mistakes in the game, he will do some really good things in the game.
‘It’s to get the balance right between giving Ben the opportunity to play, because he’s more than capable of taking them, but also making sure we protect him a little bit and we don’t overhype.
Oliver Burke celebrates his one and only Scotland goal, against Cyprus in 2019
‘Sometimes maybe in the past there have been players that have been a little bit overhyped that don’t fulfil their potential.
‘The most important thing for Ben is that he fulfils his potential and if we can help him do that, that’s what we’ll try and do.’
Josko Gvardiol, the second most expensive defender in history at £77million, endured an uncomfortable night against the explosive winger from Dalry. A lack of precision with his final cross or pass made it less painful than it might have been but, in time, that should come.
Doak’s all- action style comes at a price. Replaced after 77 minutes, the former Celtic kid has barely completed 90 minutes for club or country and Clarke must now decide if he’s ready to go up against a player at the opposite end of the career spectrum in Cristiano Ronaldo.
‘Physically he’s ready, yeah, for sure,’ said Clarke. ‘It’s just whether I choose to start him or not, that will be my choice.
‘Physically, he’s fine. Like I said, the boys are recovering. The period between the games is very short, so you spend most of these two days just recovering.
Bannan ran the show in a 3-0 win over the Faroe Islands in 2010, but that proved his high point
‘I’ll assess the squad later. We’ll speak to the medics. We’ll speak to the sports science guys who tell you how much they’ve run and how many sprints they’ve made and then we’ll make a decision on that.’
By his own admission, Clarke (left) has begun to feel like a broken record. While the stats show one win in 15 games, the last four ended in late heartbreak in the final minutes. Just as they did in Lisbon, the Scots took the lead in Zagreb before losing the game in the final minutes. Should the national team lose a fifth straight game for the first time ever tonight, all that talk of ‘positives’ and looking to the World Cup qualifiers will start to go in one ear and out the other.
‘I feel as though I’m repeating myself,’ admitted Clarke. ‘There is a process that you have to go through, you’re playing at the top table against top teams, maybe the results are not going to go for you, but we have to believe in what we’re doing.
‘When I look at the players on the pitch, I believe in what we’re doing. We can compete. We showed that in Lisbon.
‘As has just been mentioned, with the backing of the home support here, hopefully we can find another level that gets us the positive result that we all want.’
A switch to a 4-2-3-1 formation seems to suit the players at Clarke’s disposal in a squad ravaged by call-offs and injuries.
A shape facilitated to accommodate Andy Robertson and Kieran Tierney in the same starting XI, three at the back rarely seems to work when the Arsenal man is missing. With four in defence and another body in midfield, the Scots will hope to muster a shot on target before added time.
Doak is replaced by Ryan Gauld, who was once dubbed ‘Mini-Messi’ in his exciting youth
‘Sometimes the quality of the opposition determines how often you get to attack,’ added Clarke. ‘So what we have to do is make sure that we maximise the moments when we have the ball.
‘Something that we do speak to the players about is trying to improve our ball possession when we play the top sides. We did that against Croatia and I think you see the results of that was a strong performance away from home.
‘Hopefully, we can improve the ball possession at home against a top team. And we get a similar display and a much better result.’