Tomorrow is the last chance for this Scotland team and its manager. No more excuses.

Tomorrow night is international night, which means we’re once again cursed to watch this Scotland national team stumble and fumble, desperate to break out of an appalling winless run. It’s extraordinary that this drought has gone on so long without the manager facing the axe because in club football, that would never be tolerated.

No domestic boss in the country would survive a record like this. Just look across the city and you’ll see the pressure on the manager there, or take Stephen Naismith’s recent fate. David Gray at Hibs is practically a dead man walking, likely to be sacked in the coming months. Yet the national coach holds on, despite his poor record, and there’s no sign of change.

This is a topic I’m tired of writing about. I like Steve Clarke on a personal level; he’s a good man and has been a stabilising force. But he hasn’t taken us forward, and his ideas are now stale. Suggesting he’s got some hidden answer to reverse our decline is pure fantasy. We’re well past the point where anyone should believe that.

As the saying goes, “This isn’t show friends, it’s show business.”

Football is ruthless, and it’s a meritocracy. Results matter. And by that standard, Clarke’s record doesn’t justify the faith some still have in him.

One of Scottish football’s chronic problems is that too many in the media seem to think these guys are their mates, there to be defended rather than scrutinised. Meanwhile, national team form has collapsed, and we’re sliding into the abyss. Instead of analysing Clarke’s dismal record, they’re covering for him.

If Scotland loses tomorrow in front of a home crowd, Clarke is out of excuses. There’s no more room to run. He can’t keep claiming the opposition is on a different level as if that justifies an unbearably long winless run.

After the last round of internationals, I was stunned to see journalists defending him based on “improved performances.” That kind of talk wouldn’t wash in club football. When Philippe Clement claimed his team had played their best game against Aberdeen—one they lost—he was laughed at, and rightly so. The notion that Clarke should be treated differently to Celtic’s Rodgers or Clement across the city is ludicrous.

Frankly, I’m relieved that only a handful of Celtic players are involved with the national side right now. I don’t want our players mixed up in this mess, or to be blamed for the ongoing disaster. Some in the press even claim Tony Ralston’s inclusion contributes to our form, so I’m glad fewer Celtic players are on hand to shoulder the burden for a manager who’s failing utterly.

Steve Clarke is all out of alibis. If he can’t deliver a win in this game, he should do the honourable thing and step aside. If he doesn’t, then the SFA must do the right thing. Asking Scotland fans to keep watching this, and especially when these games result in the suspension of all club football is an insult to the game.

Clarke is in the same boat as Clement. You can’t watch how Scotland plays, or the lack of any real Plan B, and think this can continue. Even if he wins the next two games, it’s only a short-term fix. We’d likely go right back to another winless streak. The Clarke experiment has failed. It’s over, and all that’s left is for someone to step up and say so.

Tomorrow, it’s Croatia at Hampden, and then Poland on Monday in Warsaw.

Frankly, Clarke shouldn’t still have the job. If we don’t win tomorrow, he shouldn’t be on the plane to Poland. And if, by some miracle, he makes it to Warsaw and still can’t pull off a win, his next move should be clearing out his desk. If the mainstream press wants to keep backing him after that, they’ll be out of step with just about every Scotland fan.

This situation has dragged on too long. It’s farcical to pretend we’re improving under Clarke. He should be given clear terms—four points minimum from these two games or it’s goodbye. Surely even the SFA has a limit to how much it can tolerate in terms of standards. But somehow, we never seem to hit that limit, do we?

Maybe this break will finally bring change. But for the media to demand the Ibrox manager’s head while our national team is left to deteriorate is indefensible. Clement deserves his share of criticism, and I’m enjoying seeing him squirm, but any association with an ounce of backbone would have made this decision after the Euros.

If they had, we’d have a new manager who would already be five or six games into his tenure. Right now, we’re just delaying the inevitable, to no one’s benefit.