After watching Scotland in this international break it is clear that Steve Clarke has glaring issues within his team that could be solved if he utilised one of Celtic’s most trusted players.
The 1-0 defeat to Northern Ireland could be classed as an embarrassing result for Clarke. Especially as the Irish are undergoing a rebuild under Michael O’Neill and Clarke has a Scotland squad full of players from the English Premier League and the top clubs in Scotland.
Northern Ireland’s goal came from a mistake by Everton fullback, Nathan Patterson. The youngster did well to recover when Scotland lost possession in the middle of midfield but gifted it back to young Conor Bradley whose deflected shot found its way into Angus Gunn’s top left-hand corner.
Patterson never really recovered and now the right fullback position has come under scrutiny as the Euros get ever closer for Scotland.
So how can Steve Clarke address this issue? Well, the answer is rally simple.
Anthony Ralston deserves his Scotland chance
The Celtic fullback was an unused sub in last night’s defeat. He had to watch from the sidelines even though he did ok when he came on as a sub in the 4-0 defeat to the Netherlands.
With 986 first-team Celtic minutes this season, the argument could be posed that he hasn’t played enough football to earn a place in Clarke’s starting lineup. [Transfermarkt]
That may well be the case but when you see that Patterson has only managed 1367 minutes himself, then that’s not really an argument you can use.
With Ralston what you have is a player who is a winner, knows what it takes to play under pressure and he barely makes any mistakes in defence.
Used by Ange Postecoglou in his double-winning season, Ralston performed brilliantly for Celtic in that season under immense pressure. Ralston won over 74% of his tackles, and 59% of his duels, created 1.45 chances per game and even scored four goals with the most memorable being that 97th-minute Ross County winner. [Fotmob]
This season Ralston’s stats remain almost the same despite his lack of first-team minutes. His tackling success rate is still over 71%, duels won is over 58% ground and over 61% aerial and he’s still creating over 2 chances per game for Celtic.
With his experience of winning titles and cups at Paradise, maybe it’s time to give Ralston a go in the next international break because he has proven time and again that when it comes to performing under pressure (which Clarke us under after a seven-game winless streak), he is more than up to the task.