Steve Clarke welcomes sleepless nights and selection dilemmas ahead of Scotland's Croatia test

Scotland boss Steve Clarke said he was having sleepless nights as he weighed up his team selection for Friday’s Nations League match against Croatia.

Clarke welcomed several players back from injury when he named his squad for the match at Hampden and Monday’s clash with Poland in Warsaw and he is now considering who will start at the national stadium for the first of two crucial games.

Positive results are needed if the team are to avoid relegation back to League B but after a week of training, Clarke felt the squad was in a good place. He said his headache now was about getting the selection right with a number of different options ahead of him.

“It’s great,” he said. “I haven’t slept this week because you’ve got so many permutations going through your head, it’s brilliant.

“Good choices again.”

Scotland need goals and in the absence of Che Adams, who had to withdraw from the squad after being injured with Torino, the forward selections will be key. Clarke feels he has plenty of players who can cause Croatia trouble, and singled out the return of Middlesbrough striker Tommy Conway, who has five goals for his club this season.

“We’ve got good options,” the manager said. “Tommy Conway’s back involved. Ryan Gauld’s shown he can come in and do a good job.

“Ben Doak was good for us last camp. We’ve got John McGinn back, Stuart Armstrong, Ryan Christie, like I said there’s sleepless nights [with so many options].”

Clarke is aiming to lead the team to the results that will keep the team in the top tier of the Nations League and believes that constantly facing elite opposition will help the team develop.

He thinks the side has already improved from facing strong sides in recent months and the experience will stand them in good stead for the challenges to come.

“I think we’ve improved,” Clarke said. “I think your objective is to show that you can be competitive at this level.

“Then when we go into our next qualifying campaign, the World Cup qualifiers, you know that when you play against the Pot 1 teams you can be competitive against them. That’s what we have to aim for.

“We’ve improved but we haven’t got the results that we want so let’s improve a little bit more.”