5 Steve Clarke Scotland takeaways as he reveals Lewis Morgan call up reaction and dismisses 'Negative Normans'

Ally MacLeod famously whipped the nation into a frenzy with a rousing open-top bus send-off that had us believing Scotland could WIN the World Cup in Argentina in 1978.

There is no danger of pragmatic Steve Clarke doing the same when the Tartan Army arrive at Hampden on Friday for a Euro 2024 send-off party with Finland the opponents. But don't mistake the manager's dour demeanour for a man who wants to play dull football – and that is part of the reason he has called up Lewis Morgan to his squad for Germany in what came as a bit of a surprise.

Clarke spoke about his decision to name the former Celtic man in his 28-man pool which will be cut to 26 after the Finland game. It's set to be a party atmosphere but the result could determine just how buoyant the mood is. And Clarke will be hoping there isn't an overreaction regardless of the result, as he pointed to some of the comments following the win over minnows Gibraltar on Monday. Record Sport picks out the main talking points from his pre-match press conference.

New York Red Bulls star Morgan hasn’t played for his country for six years since a fringe squad took on Peru and Mexico in friendlies. Clarke explained the process of calling him up. He said: “I didn't actually make the initial phone call. I have to thank his club, New York Red Bulls for their co-operation. They're in season so could have made it difficult. I allowed Graeme Jones, the performance director to make the initial call to Lewis. He started to explain the situation, and Lewis said, 'I'll stop you there, I'm coming’. That tells you how pleased he is to be in our squad.

"We lost Ben Doak and had to look at our options. It came down to Lewis. It shows that we do look far and wide at players. We don't