STEVE Clarke is not anticipating any let up whatsoever from a Denmark side which can round off an extraordinary Qatar 2022 qualifying campaign with a 10th consecutive victory at Hampden this evening.

And he will demand nothing less than complete commitment from his Scotland players as well even though their place in the play-offs is guaranteed and no fewer than seven members of his squad are just a booking away from being suspended for the semi-final.

It will be a blow to the national team’s chances of reaching their first World Cup finals since France ’98 if Che Adams, Billy Gilmour, Jack Hendry, John McGinn, Kevin Nisbet, Stephen O’Donnell or Andy Robertson pick up yellow cards in their final Group F outing.

But so, too, will having to travel away for their first second round match next March and Clarke is determined for Scotland to extend their winning run to six games against the Euro 2020 semi-finalists and secure a seeding and a home game.

He will put his strongest side on the park and urge his charges to go all out for another three points in front of a sell-out 50,000-strong crowd before kick-off.

“I think a point will be enough, but we don’t know,” he said. “So it’s better just to win. It’s what I said to the boys the other night when we went to Moldova.

“There was a scenario where, even if we’d lost in Moldova, we could still qualify with the points total we had, whether it was a defeat or a draw.

“But I said to the lads ‘it’s much easier if we win because then we know exactly what’s happening’. It will be the same on Monday night.

“If we can beat Denmark, we know for sure we get the seeding. If we get the point, I’m pretty certain that will be enough to be seeded. So why not finish the campaign in a good way? That’s our aim.”

Clarke added: “Denmark will certainly be looking at this thinking ‘let’s go through the section with the perfect record’. 

“They probably wanted to do it with 30 points and no goals conceded. Now they’ve conceded the other night against the Faroes. But they’ll definitely want the 30 points. They will want those 10 victories.

“It’s a great way to go into any tournament and they’ll feel good about themselves if they can do that. They’ll come here to a full house. Professional players like to play in front of big crowds in good atmospheres. I’m sure they will be bang at it.”

Clarke had, for a fleeting moment, considered encouraging his players who were on the verge of suspensions to pick up bookings in the Moldova match last week once they were certain of victory so that they served their ban against Denmark and were available for the play-off semi-final.

However, he quickly realised that prevailing against Kasper Hjulmand’s men, who ran out comfortable 2-0 winners when they played them in Copenhagen back in September, was far too important.

He also acknowledges that every country which will be involved in the play-offs will be wrestling with exactly the same problem.

“It’s almost impossible to manage because you have so many,” he said. “You get to the point where you have to ask who are you protecting and how are you going to do it? 

“Over the course of a campaign you are going to pitch some up. Someone told me that Sweden have something like 16. So we’re not the worst. I’ve got a list of most of the countries and they are all up there, seven, eight, nine bookings. It’s just the way it is. 

“Everybody understands it. We’ll just deal with it. The boys know. They’ve all played top level football. You know you run a risk if you go into a Champions League game (on a booking) and if you get a card you miss the next game. You have to learn how to play a game with a yellow card hanging over your head.”

Clarke, like so many international managers, is not a fan of the suspension system and would like to see FIFA change it. But he knows there is no prospect of that happening before the play-off draw takes place in Switzerland on Friday week even if national associations complain en masse and is focusing his attentions fully on overcoming Denmark.    

Still, if Adams, Gilmour, McGinn or Robertson, a quartet who are guaranteed starters in this Scotland side, get their names taken by Spanish referee Alejandro Hernandez-Hernandez at some stage during the course of the 90 minutes tonight every member of the Tartan Army will despair.

Losing McGinn for the semi-final will be a devastating setback. The Aston Villa man was once again outstanding in the dark blue of his country on Friday night. He set up Nathan Patterson for the opener in the first-half and initiated the attack that resulted in Adams scoring the second with a cheeky back heel.

Clarke moved the midfielder into a more advanced role in his 3-5-2 formation early on in his two-and-a-half year tenure and has not had any cause to regret his decision. He thinks that digs about the size and weight of “Meatball” do something of a disservice to a fine footballer.  

“He’s grown as an international player,” he said. “The more caps he’s got, the more responsibility he’s had within the camp and the better he’s become. He’s a big personality on and off the pitch. He’s a key member of our squad on the pitch, but he shows a lot off the pitch as well. 

“He’s a good player. I think the comments about his body shape are a bit unkind, to be honest as he’s a good player. He sets a good tempo for us. 

“One of the things I learned quite quickly was that if you can use John as a more advanced midfield player rather than the deeper role, he gives you that opportunity to create a high press on the pitch. He does that very well.”