The Scotland weakness turned major strength now fuelling Euro 2024 charge as Austin MacPhee lays bare new role

He admits they’re Scottish football’s odd couple. But when it comes to the numbers game then pairing Austin MacPhee and Steve Clarke has helped put Scotland firmly back on an even keel.

A trailblazer for what’s almost become the norm in the Premier League, the Aston Villa set piece coach has brought his area of expertise to the Scottish national team after boss Clarke realised it was something badly needing improved. Some may scoff. But the numbers stack up in MacPhee’s favour. The 43-year-old said: “The main job Steve wants is that set pieces for Scotland are really well organised and are successful. This will be my 19th game against Cyprus.

“We have scored 12 goals in 18 games through set pieces which include throw-ins. We have conceded four or five. In the previous 18 games we had conceded four or five. But we had scored one. Set pieces are accountable for broadly 30 per cent of goals. You have a record and right now at Scotland it’s actually too good because our xG is around 10 and we’ve scored 12."

The first of those 18 games with MacPhee involved coincided with Scott McTominay’s last gasp headed winner against Israel on a monumental night at Hampden. There’s been other stand out set piece goals too such as John Souttar’s against Denmark in Glasgow.

It really shouldn’t come as a surprise after the former Hearts assistant and MIdjtylland coach played a major role in Northern Ireland’s run to the 2016 Euro Championships where they stormed to the last 16.

MacPhee said: “Steve and me are quite an odd couple because Steve has probably worked with more people as a manager who are more conventional assistant coaches.

“By pure chance, in the same week that I left Midtjylland to join Villa, I left Northern Ireland to join