Scotland 0-3 Greece: ‘A return to the worst of times under Clarke’

Clarke has shown a fantastic capacity to recover from setbacks and there’s reason to believe in his ability to do the same again now, but there was a weariness at Hampden. “It was a kick up the backside,” said McGinn. But why was it needed?

There were more boos at full-time but a fair number of supporters had vanished by then. It would be too dramatic to say their optimism of making the World Cup also disappeared, but the fact is Greece are in Scotland’s group and they have now done a proper psychological number on Scotland before those games in the autumn. Clarke said as much in the aftermath.

He has some months to ponder things now, a window in which to consider his next move. He suggested he regretted not changing his team a little more from Thursday to Sunday. He spoke about freshness, or lack of it. “I’ll go away and look at myself,” he said.

What might he be thinking about? The safe return of Ben Doak to add width and pace, for sure. The desperately needed reintroduction of Aaron Hickey after his awful injury woes, without question.

Clarke is deeply loyal to the players who have delivered for him, but Scott McKenna is playing in La Liga every week. The composition of his midfield, too. Kenny McLean has been a tremendous servant but the time has surely come for Ferguson to take over.

Relegation to League B is, in itself, no great disaster. Scotland will win more games down there. They’ll have a better chance of grabbing a play-off place in the next Euros while operating in less rarefied air.

The thing that made Sunday stunning was the complete disintegration of a team we thought had more about them. That was the takeaway. Clarke has been here before, but the hope was he would never be back here again.