Scotland fans deserve more than this abject mediocrity cheered on by a paralysed media.

In the moment, deep, deep into injury time, when Che Adams looked to have bundled the ball across the line, Rob Maclean and Michael Stewart were both of the view that all the negative headlines and stories that otherwise might have been written could be shredded.

Just before that, Maclean said something that gave me a laugh.

He remarked that Scotland were pushing to end their winless run. He said this with a minute left of normal time and Scotland 2-1 down. What they were actually pressing for was to continue that winless run by snatching a late draw.

For a brief moment, it looked like they had.

When Michael Stewart realised it might be offside, he sounded genuinely pained.

I hate to say this, especially on a day when we’ve lost a great Scottish political titan in Alex Salmond, but I would have been more pained if that had counted. Because then we’d have had to paper over the cracks and pretend everything was fine, to pretend the winless run isn’t an embarrassment, pretend this can go on much longer.

When a club is in trouble, they can shake things up by buying new players. National teams don’t have that luxury.

When a national team is in trouble, they stay that way until they change the coaching staff. I don’t know what people expect to happen when we break this winless run. One win, and we’ll just start another poor streak.

Any credible football association would have terminated Steve Clarke the minute the Euros were over.

But instead, we’re just dragging out the national joke. All we’re doing is persisting with something that isn’t working.

The SFA is a rudderless, gutless ship.

The fact we had to watch that game on YouTube instead of BBC Scotland is an insult to the tens of thousands of Scotland fans who would otherwise have had it on the box. I blame the SFA entirely for that situation. But they’re guilty of much more than that.

They’re guilty of letting this national side regress while they sit back and do nothing.

What exactly do they see when they watch us right now? What improvements do they imagine are taking place?

What big leap forward do they think we’re taking under this manager?

Brendan Rodgers is getting hammered in the media because he won’t change our tactical approach in Europe—or he says he won’t. Is there any sign that Clarke will do that? Why is he getting such an easy ride for this stubborn, foolish stance?

No credible association would have tolerated this. And no credible media would have cheered on a late goal to secure a draw in a game we had to win.

The cringe factor has a hold of these people to the extent that they see something like that as a triumph. The fact that, had that goal stood, there would have been euphoric headlines claiming we’d achieved something incredible just infuriates me. This has to end. I’m not in favour of kicking this further down the line. He should have been sacked already, and if we don’t win the next game, then he should be fired the moment the final whistle blows.

We’re far too content in this country to settle for mediocrity. We’re far too happy with our perennial hard-luck stories. The media are loyal to their friends, not to the national interest. They like Clarke, and they think he’s a good guy.

He might well be, but whenever I hear it, I think of Blake in Glengarry Glen Ross, delivering that devastating speech to Moss; “Nice guy? I don’t give a ****. Good father? **** you! Go home and play with your kids. If you wanna work here, CLOSE.”

We don’t ask much of our national coaches, although we should.

And we should certainly ask more than we do.

But is it too much to ask that we win once in a while? That we don’t just scrape a draw by the skin of our teeth at the last possible second and celebrate like the Ibrox club did at home in the last derby there of last season?

So what of the headlines now, Rob Maclean and Michael Stewart?

Now that we haven’t snatched some kind of phony victory, which wouldn’t have been a victory at all? What now? What do we say about this continuing run of bad results? Is it finally permissible for critical articles to be written? Is it now okay to ask how much longer we have to put up with this?

Because, honestly, I’m done with it. I’m done with Steve Clarke.

You know I’m in a bad place emotionally when I’m quoting David Cameron, but here goes; “He was the future once.”

But those days are gone.

We’re on the downslope now, and when you’re on the downslope, you’ve got to pull the brakes.

We can’t change the players out there, but we can change the system, we can change the style of play, we can change the setup of this team, and we can restore some ambition and pride. None of that will happen with Clarke at the helm.

One win from the last 15 games, folks. That’s the only stat that matters.

Talk about how excellent the football has been in the last three games leaves my blood cold.

We are accepting mediocrity as if we have no choice to.

We do have a choice though, and it’s time people fronted up.

It’s long past time for a change.

Does anyone in charge of Scottish football—provided, of course, that someone is actually running Scottish football—have the guts to make it?