{"id":487353,"date":"2026-06-07T09:56:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T09:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/487353\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T09:56:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T09:56:12","slug":"world-cup-scotlands-steve-clarke-has-decisions-to-make-for-haiti-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/487353\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup: Scotland’s Steve Clarke has ‘decisions to make’ for Haiti opener"},"content":{"rendered":"

To think that four-goal first-half performance didn’t even involve John McGinn.<\/p>\n

A traditional 4-4-2 brought the best out of Scott McTominay, if that’s even more possible. Although we all know the Napoli star’s position was never in any doubt.<\/p>\n

Bologna’s Lewis Ferguson, who captain Robertson said “turned into a man” , external<\/a>during the qualification campaign, again showed his maturity and ability to dictate play in the middle of the park. Cultured, some might say.<\/p>\n

But, in truth, the first half was dominated by the work done down the wings by Bournemouth pair Ben Gannon-Doak and Ryan Christie.<\/p>\n

Long before he was even in the squad, Gannon-Doak excited supporters. He was the Billy Gilmour of the Euro 2024 team, picking up an injury before the squad jetted off to Germany.<\/p>\n

Since then, he’s reminded everyone what they missed with his absence. The epitome of a Duracell Bunny, the 20-year-old dazzled on Saturday.<\/p>\n

At times, his end product has been his downfall, but it wasn’t of concern stateside.<\/p>\n

“Ben did himself the power of good today,” Clarke acknowledged. “We know what he can give us.” <\/p>\n

Clarke also knows what Christie can provide. In many positions. He was lively down the left, with an instinct to cut in and create. <\/p>\n

Many were crying out for Findlay Curtis to start, given his first international goal last weekend, but its hard to make a case for Christie not starting somewhere on Sunday.<\/p>\n

It’s perhaps the biggest head-scratcher of them all for Clarke, but what a problem to have.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To think that four-goal first-half performance didn’t even involve John McGinn. A traditional 4-4-2 brought the best out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-487353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}