Scottish football has to change its youth development, warns Steve Clarke

Steve Clarke has warned Scottish football it must adopt a drastically different approach to youth development or risk falling further behind the world’s leading nations.

Clarke’s sterling work in charge of the national team – Scotland are in the top tier of the Nations League and have qualified for back-to-back European Championships – masks domestic concerns. Statistics relating to the lack of homegrown players, especially those aged under 21, in the Scottish Premiership are alarming. This contrasts starkly with the situation in Croatia, whom Scotland welcome to Hampden Park on Friday evening.

“At some stage, people have to sit down, a thinktank or whatever, and try something a bit different that we haven’t tried before to see if we can improve it,” said Clarke. “If we keep doing what we’re doing, it’s not going to get better.

“I’m Scotland head coach and in these camps I concentrate on trying to get the results and performances the Tartan Army want because they come and watch us. Going down into the youth level needs someone with a different skillset, or me to step away from this job and really think about it more deeply. But if we continue to do what we’re doing, we’ll always get what we get.

“The change has to be driven from the top. They have to understand we need to change. I’m sure previous head coaches have said it before, going way back. Is there an understanding from the top? Yes, I think there is but it needs a collective. It’s not just the people at the Scottish FA, it’s the people that are in charge at the clubs. Everybody has to sit down and try to work out a way that we can improve going forward.”

Clarke pointed to Croatia’s “conveyor belt” of talent as a model Scotland must try to emulate. “They produce a lot of good young players and allow them to play a lot of games in their own country before they move out, which is a really good grounding and something we can maybe get better at here,” he said. “And they show a pathway for the young players. There’s a lot we need to try to change if we want to get better. We can get to that level but we still have a lot of work to do.”

Whether Clarke’s sentiment will strike a chord with Scottish clubs remains to be seen. The biggest ones have been statistically among the worst for promotion of academy players.

Croatia’s visit gives Scotland the chance to improve on a run of one win in 16 games. Clarke’s team have two matches remaining – they play Poland on Monday – to determine whether they will be relegated to the Nations League’s second level or maintain current status.

“The result is the most important thing and that’s what we need now,” said Clarke. “We have to turn performances into points. I think we’ve improved. In our next World Cup qualifying campaign, we will know we can be competitive now.”