2026 World Cup: Why Scotland’s attacking numbers highlight repeated failings

Much of the criticism that stemmed from Scotland’s meek Euro 2024 showings arose from Clarke’s reluctance to move away from a back-five formation.

This summer, that has not been the case. The Scotland boss has used three different set-ups across three different games.

A 4-4-2 shape that helped the Scots score eight goals across two encouraging World Cup warm-up fixtures against 10-man Curacao and Bolivia was deployed in the nervy win over the Haitians.

Slight variations of a 4-2-3-1 were used against both Morocco and Brazil, with full-back Kieran Tierney on the left of midfield against the former and a more attack-minded system, with Ben Gannon-Doak on the wing instead, against the Brazilians.

Morocco aside, the front-footed look of the Scotland XIs on paper against Haiti and Brazil played into the self-proclaimed idea that Clarke had travelled to the US as a new man with fresh ideas.

However, there were repeated concerns about gameplans and the execution of them.

Scotland were clinging on for much of the 1-0 victory over Haiti and many feared that a single-goal win would potentially be damaging for their hopes of progression. It looks set to play a part in what now feels like an inevitable early exit.