Lawrence Shankland’s goals for Hearts have changed the way Steve Clarke is thinking about Scotland’s attack. What was once a lone-striker setup now looks much more like a side built around Shankland and Che Adams together.
That shift matters because Shankland is not being discussed here as a backup plan. He has 28 goals for Hearts and, at one point in this run, scored 15 in 15, form that has made him hard to ignore as Scotland prepares for its next test. Clarke’s earlier preference had been to play with one striker, with Adams as the central forward, but Shankland’s scoring has pushed him toward a different shape.
The change has come after a long climb for the striker. In mid-March 2024, Shankland started alone up front for Scotland against the Netherlands in Amsterdam, when Steven Naismith was still Hearts manager and later reflected on the match. Naismith recalled one moment when the ball broke to Shankland 20 yards out and he tried to reverse it to Scott McTominay instead of taking the shot. Afterward, Naismith told him he would rather he had hit the chance himself, but also said he understood why Shankland might have felt he needed to fit in.
Naismith’s view at the time was blunt. He said Shankland was still at sea at international level, even though he was already in strong club form. That is the friction in his rise: the same striker who looked hesitant in Amsterdam is now being treated as part of Scotland’s core. Naismith said he is totally different now, comfortable, and mature, and added that he believes Shankland is part of the squad for moments like these.
The backdrop makes the change more striking. Shankland and Andy Robertson were teammates at Queen’s Park 13 years ago, when they were trying to reach the third tier of Scottish football and fell short in a play-off final that ended 1-0 at home and 3-1 away, with 954 at the second leg in Peterhead. Robertson has gone on to live a different kind of career path through Liverpool and beyond, while Shankland is only now arriving as a potential main man for Scotland. That same progression is why his form now feeds directly into Clarke’s thinking rather than simply into club headlines.
What Scotland does next will depend on whether Clarke keeps Adams and Shankland together or returns to a single striker. The signs point toward the two-man option, because the partnership has looked potent and Shankland has earned more trust with every goal. For a striker who once seemed unsure in Amsterdam, the question now is not whether he belongs. It is whether he starts.
