Scotland’s June camp is “still disappointing”, says head coach Steve Clarke, despite Che Adams’ hat-trick delivering a comfortable friendly win over lowly Liechtenstein.
Clarke praised his team’s reaction after the 3-1 home humbling by Iceland, but the Scotland boss says Friday’s defeat means the feel-good factor has not been fully restored heading into the nation’s World Cup qualifiers in September.
After the loss to Iceland followed a disappointing Nations League play-off defeat by Greece in March, the Scots came into this friendly desperately looking for momentum.
But Adams made sure any angst about trying to break down a stuffy side ranked 205th in the world was short-lived though as he slammed home after just four minutes.
The Torino striker then reversed a lovely finish into the bottom corner to give Scotland daylight, after midfielder Lennon Miller forced a mistake on his first Scotland start.
After the break George Hirst anticipated well to turn in Adams’ flick to notch his first Scotland goal, after Anthony Ralston whipped a ball in from the right.
And as the action was petering out, Adams brought the Tartan Army to their feet when he completed his hat-trick by nodding in Tommy Conway’s cross.
Goalkeeper Ross Doohan cut short his holiday to join the squad amid an injury crisis in that position, but was mostly a spectator on his debut.
Now the Scotland squad head off for a rest after a long season, and the focus will quickly turn to the first World Cup qualifier, away to Denmark on 5 September.
“I know my players, I trust my players, we’ve had a couple of disappointments,” Clarke told BBC Scotland. “But they’ve always shown resilience to come back and do what they can do.
“There’s not really a feel-good factor because it’s still a disappointing camp. We didn’t play as we can play at Hampden [on Friday], so I’m certainly going to carry that on into September.
“There was hurt and anger in the dressing room and hopefully we can harness that and take that into the autumn games.”
