Steve Clarke unaware of Scotland's Nations League near miss amid admission over Ben Doak substitution

Steve Clarke watched Scotland almost make a miracle happen here in Warsaw last night - then revealed he had no idea how close they came to claiming a place in the last eight of the Nations League.

For more than an hour against Poland, after an early opener from John McGinn, Clarke’s side was just one goal away from a second placed finish and a shot at the quarter finals. Even though ultimately Croatia killed the dream by coming from behind to draw with Portugal in Zagreb, Scotland avoided relegation from the top flight in the dying seconds of injury time when skipper Andy Robertson headed home to clinch a 2-1 win.

And that was all the manager was focussed on throughout an emotional rollercoaster of a night. Asked if he realised just how close they had come to nailing down second place in the section Clarke said: “I wasn’t aware of anything that was going on in Zagreb. That wasn’t what we were focussing on. We focussed on coming to a difficult place.

“We knew it would be a very open game because Poland are very, very offensive and we knew we had to be at our best to get a result. We spoke before about coming away to difficult places and getting results in a really difficult environment and we showed again we can do that tonight.”

Clarke had toyed with the idea of leaving Ben Doak out of his starting line-up but opted to stick with the teenage prodigy who followed up his man of the match performance in Friday night’s win over Croatia by setting up McGinn’s quickfire opener just three minutes in. Asked if he was pleased that he gave the youngster another start he responded: “Obviously. He got another assist tonight which is good. I think he tired quite quickly in the second half and I should maybe have taken him off a