There is work to do – Steve Clarke knows Scotland have improvements to make

Scotland manager Steve Clarke admitted a 4-1 victory over Armenia could not turn their June campaign into a success but he praised his side’s character after getting back on track.

Clarke praised his players for overcoming fatigue and a slow start to ultimately seal a comfortable win against a team which finished with nine men.

And Clarke stressed his team still had a “realistic chance” of finishing top of their Nations League group despite Saturday’s 3-0 defeat in Dublin.

Scotland have six points at the halfway stage but face a double-header against World Cup play-off conquerors Ukraine either side of a Hampden clash with the Republic of Ireland in September.

Looking back at the four-game programme, Clarke said: “It was a difficult schedule for the players. It was difficult, but we haven’t made excuses until now.

“There’s no excuses for the two games that we lost. Two wins against Armenia are not going to make this international camp a good camp, because it wasn’t.

“We failed on our primary objective – to get to the World Cup. We failed on that and we had a really bad performance in Dublin, which put us on the back foot again. It’s nice to bounce back but there is work to do.”

Scotland had work to do after six minutes in Yerevan when they fell behind following Grant Hanley’s mistake.

Stuart Armstrong quickly levelled but Scotland looked vulnerable at the back until settling down around the half-hour mark.

The odds went in their favour just before the break when Arman Hovhannisyan was shown two yellow cards for fouling Nathan Patterson and headbutting John McGinn inside five seconds.

The visitors hammered home their numerical advantage with goals from Armstrong, John McGinn and Che Adams in the following 10 minutes of