St Johnstone’s recent Covid-19 ordeal has given Steven MacLean an appreciation of the pre-Euro 2020 “nightmare” Scotland boss Steve Clarke is currently enduring.
Saints’ Scottish Cup semi-final and final preparations were disrupted by a coronavirus outbreak, the effects of which lasted around a fortnight.
John Fleck’s positive test at the Scots’ Spanish training base and the decision to leave another six players out of Wednesday night’s friendly with the Netherlands have impacted on the build-up to the European Championships, which are less than a fortnight away.
Clarke is maintaining a calm and controlled public face but his stress levels will be high, according to Perth assistant manager MacLean, as the national coach keeps his fingers crossed for negative test results over the next few days.
“Steve Clarke won’t be sleeping much anyway, I can tell you that!” said Callum Davidson’s right-hand man.
“It’s a nightmare because Covid is so unpredictable.
“They are going by the Spanish guidelines so it’s a wee bit different to what we had before the Scottish Cup games.
“But it’s still difficult to deal with no matter where it is.
“Hopefully John Fleck is OK and it hasn’t affected him much, and the rest of the players keep testing negative.
🏴The six Scotland players who missed the draw against the Netherlands will train with the group today ahead of #EURO2020.
Steve Clarke discusses "embarrassing" referring, the game and much more. What did you make of the match?👇 pic.twitter.com/iilqj9ifMJ
— Sky Sports Scotland (@ScotlandSky) June 3, 2021
“If he can get a couple of negative tests in then hopefully he’ll be able to come back into the group.
“We just have to hope it’s an isolated case and they don’t have an outbreak like we did because it’s so difficult to manage.
“We didn’t train a lot and it makes things very difficult.
“You don’t want to do too much because you don’t want people mixing so it’s a catch-22 situation.
“On one hand you need to get work into the players but on the other you don’t want more outbreaks, so it’s a balancing act.
“You basically have to take it every hour and after every test you’re sitting by the phone saying ‘please don’t get the call’ or ‘please tell me everyone is OK’.
“After every testing day we had I always said to Mel our physio that if I hadn’t heard from her by five o’clock I knew we were in bother.”
There is no such thing as an impenetrable bubble in a pandemic but there is a key difference between the Saints experience and the current Scotland one.
“The advantage the Scotland set-up have is they are not going home,” said MacLean. “They have the players together now.
“They are in their own bubble.
“So hopefully that means they will only have one positive case and, fingers crossed, they can get through to the Euros without any problems.
“For us it was hard because the players were just coming in, training and going straight home again afterwards.
“As staff, we didn’t get to meet as much, you didn’t see as much of each other and it made life difficult.
“That was without doing anything wrong. We were just so unfortunate.”
Kevin Nisbet didn’t come close to scoring for Hibs against Saints in the Scottish Cup final but he underlined his Euro credentials with an instant back-post finish in midweek after coming off the bench in the Netherlands game.
👊 A first Scotland goal from @kevinnisbet16 sees us re-take the lead in Faro.#NEDSCOpic.twitter.com/0jagbJQiZS
— Scotland National Team (@ScotlandNT) June 2, 2021
“I was pleased for Nisbet to come on straight away and score,” said MacLean. “Lyndon Dykes did well too.
“You also have Che Adams coming back, so there are some really good options up front.
“We have good strikers and with Ryan Christie able to play up front, there are plenty of options.
“You’d imagine Adams and Lyndon Dykes will play, but Nisbet will be champing at the bit and looking to make an impact as a sub if he gets on.
“All he can do is what he did against Holland, come on and score goals.
“Scotland showed against Holland they are a good side who have a lot of good players so hopefully with a wee bit of luck we can have a good tournament.
“It is good to see young Scottish players doing well and getting their chance.”
None of them from St Johnstone, mind you.
“The players should be disappointed that they didn’t called up but they just have to keep improving,” said MacLean.
“I probably was surprised but it’s a difficult thing to pick a squad.
“You never know.
“Hopefully Scotland have a good Euros. If they keep improving, they might get in the squad in future.”
- Steven MacLean was speaking at the launch of the St Johnstone season ticket campaign for 2021/22.
Saints’ fans can get their tickets to see the cup double winners next season from the official club website at
https://www.perthstjohnstonefc.co.uk/tickets
Scotland analysis: Attacking centre-backs, young guns who took their chance and Covid concerns
