GARY KEOWN: With this famous five in midfield, there are NO excuses for Scotland not being at a World Cup… and competing hard

Just take one look at the midfield, the engine room, available to Scotland boss Steve Clarke for the upcoming World Cup campaign and dare to argue that it’s impossible to get excited.

There’s Scott McTominay, in the prime of his career at 28, tearing up Serie A in a Napoli side maintaining an unexpected fight for the title and already being linked with a potential summer transfer to league rivals Inter Milan.

Beside him for club and country is Billy Gilmour, the most technically-proficient player our nation has delivered in years and, finally, getting regular first-team football for Antonio Conte’s side.

Meanwhile, John McGinn, set to win his 75th cap in the second leg of the Nations League play-off against Greece this evening, is about to captain Aston Villa in the quarter-finals of the Champions League.

And, at long last, Lewis Ferguson is in the line-up after returning from the cruciate ligament injury which brought his heartstopping rise to prominence at Bologna to a halt last spring.

He is back in the thick of things now, all right, at a side sitting fourth in Serie A — having captained them in the Champions League — and is likely to progress to the next level of his career this summer with a lucrative move.

Jubilant team-mates mob the Napoli midfielder, so often the goalscoring hero for his country

McTominay’s performances in Serie A this season have been central to Napoli’s title charge

Add in Ryan Christie, outstanding at Bournemouth in the English Premier League in a deeper central role entrusted to him by the mercurial Andoni Iraola, and you have the makings of Scotland’s very own Famous Five.

If you can’t get to a World Cup finals with these guys forming the nucleus of the team — and go there and compete hard — there really is something wrong.

There are no excuses for Clarke. As Scottish FA president Mike Mulraney stated in the midst of the shambles that Euro 2024 became, ‘qualifying can’t be enough for Scotland’.

Next time out, we have to make it to the finals in North America. And we have to have a proper go — not slide into the same scared, suffocated side that went out with a whimper in Euro 2020 and in Germany last summer.

Yes, there are others in the mix for places in the middle of the park, of course. Kenny McLean played well in Piraeus last Thursday, but he’s 33 years old and turns out for Norwich City in the English Championship.

Lennon Miller will, hopefully, choose his next destination wisely and keep progressing when he leaves Motherwell in the coming months. Kieran Tierney might even be pushed forward into a more advanced position now that Clarke seems to have settled on a back four. Ben Doak, although more of a winger, will be back in the frame after injury too.

Billy Gilmour was another star turn against Greece and was unlucky not to win a penalty

Gilmour has had to be patient in Naples but is now enjoying a run in Antonio Conte’s first team

However, the thought of McTominay, Gilmour, Christie, McGinn and Ferguson all playing together in the same starting XI just makes the mouth water. There is absolutely no reason why they can’t, given the system Clarke is now using.

Let’s hope we get a first sight of them all working in harmony against the Greeks at Hampden tonight. A first hint of what they could go on to achieve together.

It must be decades since we had a collection of midfielders operating at these levels. Even McGinn and Christie, both just into their thirties, are still pushing their careers to new heights. The others, if logic is a dependable guide, are only going to get better and better.

McTominay is a machine. Gilmour has taken his chance at Napoli in the wake of an injury to Stanislav Lobotka and, it must be remembered, is still only 23. Ferguson showed what he offers in technicolour in that victory in Piraeus and can’t possibly stay on the sidelines any longer. He was voted the best midfielder in Serie A last season, for crying out loud.

Clarke did end two decades of hurt by getting Scotland back to the finals of major competitions, but one of many valid criticisms is that we didn’t do ourselves justice when we got there. Nowhere near it. Three shots on target in three games in Germany last summer remains all that needs to be said.

In Euro 2024, in particular, it didn’t feel like Clarke truly believed in the talent at his disposal. Or even in himself. The ‘swagger’ he spoke about possessing pre-tournament just never materialised.

John McGinn is set to earn his 75th cap against Greece at Hampden on Sunday evening

Clarke has an embarrassment of riches in the midfield area… now he needs to make it click

That cannot happen again. Clarke has plenty of supporters and he has, over the piece, done a good job as national coach.

However, you worry about the prospect of him going into a third major finals when he failed in the previous two and didn’t appear willing to own his mistakes. The fact the upcoming campaign is going to play out against what are likely to be his closing months in the job creates a bit of unease as well.

What is certain, though, is that he has a stronger panel than ever ahead of the World Cup. Any manager of standing should fancy his chances of not just going to the finals, but making the knockouts for the first time ever, with this lot.

In addition to the midfield, he has an embarrassment of riches in the full-back areas. At right-back, Aaron Hickey and Nathan Patterson will soon be back in contention. Max Johnston, understudy to Anthony Ralston for these games against Greece, is also making real progress at Sturm Graz.

At left-back, Andy Robertson reigns supreme with Tierney as back-up.

Up front, Che Adams, benefiting from his own move to Serie A with Torino, is perfectly capable. It’s in defence where the concerns are, but, my goodness, there are few sides outwith the very elite who can say they have top-class talent in every position.

Lewis Ferguson made a long-awaited start for Scotland and impressed in the 1-0 win in Greece

Bournemouth man Ryan Christie is back from suspension and could replace Kenny McLean

Craig Gordon is 42, but does Angus Gunn automatically reclaim the goalkeeper’s position in the wake of his Euro 2024? The jury’s out.

Central defence remains an issue, but let’s just hope Grant Hanley, a real Clarke favourite, can find steady first-team football at a decent level next term and John Souttar can stay fit and build on the kind of performances he delivered for Rangers against Fenerbahce in the last 16 of the Europa League.

Scott McKenna avoiding relegation with Las Palmas and having another season of action week-in, week-out in Spain’s La Liga would be a real bonus too.

It’s all there for Clarke and Co. With the Greeks, already shown to be perfectly beatable, also in the World Cup group and the top-seeded team to be decided in tonight’s Nations League tie between Portugal and Denmark, there is nothing to fear.

A nation expects. With very good reason.

Carver advice for Miller is best ignored

John Carver has some front telling Lennon Miller that he ‘needs a little guidance’ after stating that he wants to go on and become the best player in the national squad.

If anyone needs steered in the right direction when it comes to appearing in front of the media and letting his belly rumble, it’s the Scotland assistant manager.

Look, enough has been said about the reaction to the 18-year-old Motherwell captain’s remarks. He is, as stated here last week before it all got so needlessly ridiculous, 100-per-cent correct to be aiming for the stars.

John Carver didn’t appear to be overly enamoured with Lennon Miller’s natural confidence

The uncapped Motherwell man has expressed his aim to be a leading player for his country

Maybe he isn’t going to achieve all his dreams in the two-month schedule he set himself, but who cares? He’s showing the kind of mindset all top young players ought to possess.

John McGinn needs to have a look at himself for slapping Miller down while Carver ought to reflect upon some of the stuff he’s been caught coming out with himself in press conferences of times past.

None more so than when he reappeared months after the national embarrassment of Euro 2024, having headed off to Ulan Bator or wherever with Steve Clarke to win the doubles tournament at the World Hide-And-Seek Championships.

‘The amount of people I’ve met since the Euros who have come up to me… and not one person has come up and said they were disappointed,’ he said back then, after a disgrace of a tournament that still brings night terrors.

‘They have actually said how much of a great time they had. It’s been a great journey, so that gives you a little bit of a lift that people are saying that.’

All said with a straight face, too. Incredible. If young Miller is thinking about looking for a little direction in terms of talking in public after the week just gone, there’s one bloke he most definitely should be giving a wide berth.

Has Strachan forgotten who he works for? 

Gordon Strachan returned to the public consciousness this week with a well-watched interview on YouTube about ‘Life At Celtic’.

Gordon Strachan loves to talk about his time at Celtic and football in general, but rarely Dundee

This is all well and good. The former Parkhead boss has plenty of interesting insights, a background of measurable success and knows how to tell a story to boot. It is easy to see why he is a man in demand among the media and on the after-dinner circuit.

Hearing him run through all the old classics about Artmedia Bratislava and meeting people who are Celtic supporters all over the world — plus some from Leeds — just raises one nagging question that escaped attention during his latest outing, though.

Does the guy working as Dundee’s technical director and, according to documents released by Companies House last year, the fourth-biggest shareholder at the club ever actually talk about Dundee?