Callum McGregor and Billy Gilmour become Steve Clarke's Jack and Victor as dynamic duo have nation believing again

They're fast becoming the most cherished Scottish double act since Jack and Victor.

And on Sunday night in Stuttgart the script will be perfectly written for Callum McGregor and Billy Gilmour to make sure that we’re still game, as far as hanging around at these European Championships is concerned. For reasons which remain best known to himself, Steve Clarke chose to split this pairing up for the opening day of Group A - a savage, brutal affair during which his side was given a mauling all over midfield.

By leaving Gilmour on his bench, Clarke surrendered any hope of controlling the centre of the pitch in favour of deploying Ryan Christie further up the field in the role of a willing runner. As a consequence, McGregor found himself hopelessly outmanned and outmuscled as the Germans came flooding at him in their droves. And, after a 5-1 whipping, Scotland were panned by the critics and dismissed as tournament no-hopers.

That all changed in Cologne on Wednesday night when Gilmour and McGregor were reunited for the 1-1 draw with Switzerland which has breathed new life into Clarke’s hopes of mounting a historic run into the knock-out stages. Put it this way, nobody is pointing and laughing at this side any more, not now that Jack and Victor are back together. And no one is happier about that than McGregor.

The Celtic skipper beamed: “Billy was excellent. When he comes in he takes the ball and he gets us playing. I like playing beside him because he will take the ball and will start to connect the game.

“At this level you need to have the ball, you can’t just defend for 90 minutes. It’s important that when you get it you retain it, you keep the ball and give yourself a breather in the game. We like playing in there together. He was fantastic. A lot of players out there were excellent. Full credit to the players because it was a difficult day on Friday and we have bounced back and given ourselves a chance and we arrive into the last game with confidence that we can go through.”

At various points throughout Wednesday night’s match - and particularly towards the end of the first half - McGregor and Gilmour assumed almost total control, grabbing it by the scruff of the neck dictating the pace and the direction of play. It’s what they do.

And it’s why Clarke’s decision to make Gilmour sit the first one out is still difficult to unpack, even though the manager said it was always part of his masterplan to pick up four points from the last two games in Group A. McGregor, though, might take some convincing.

He went on: “In European football you have to have the ball. Other teams look after the ball so well and you come to the game and there is big energy, everyone is running, running, running. You need to be calm and you need to have the ball and also take a rest with the ball as well. You can’t just be flat out for 90 minutes chasing the ball because the teams at this level are too good.

“Sometimes you need to breathe with the ball and put a few passes together. That got us to half-time and obviously we came out in the second half refreshed and with a bit more energy and we started to take the game to them. Overall it was a much better performance and I think we can get even better than that as well.

“We gave a good account of ourselves. It was much more like the Scotland team we have been and how we qualified. Everyone left the pitch with no regrets. On a different night we could maybe have nicked it. The players showed brilliant personality after the other day, a difficult day. You have to be together and come out fighting and that is exactly what we did. We arrive into the last game with a big chance.”

With two class acts in McGregor and Gilmour at the heart of this side, there does feel like genuine reason for the nation to start believing all over again. And if they do pull this off with a win over Hungary on Sunday then maybe Clarke’s curious selection on opening night will look like a stroke of genius after all - even though it went down like a lead balloon at the time.

McGregor said: “That’s football and we understand that everybody just wants us to do so well. When you get a bad result, perspective goes out the window a little bit. When the draw was made you were probably targeting the last two games.

“It was probably the manner of the defeat the other night which made everyone feel a bit sore and not great. As footballers you have to deal with that. You have to try to put it right.

“We made the first step of putting it right against Switzerland and we arrive into the game on Sunday now with the belief that, if we play equally as well, if not better, we give ourselves a right good chance.

"Would we have taken this position before a ball was kicked? Absolutely. I think if you asked anybody, they would have said the same thing. Over the next few days everybody will be buzzing. We have two days of recovery and then we’ll plan our way into the game, stay calm, and when we arrive everyone will be desperate for us to get through.

“We’ll feel exactly the same but we have to bring a level or performance that matches that ambition to go through. As I said there about having the ball and dictating the game, it can’t just be constant running, running, running. You have to control the game as well. We have to do a lot right on Sunday but let’s see where we go.

“We have to recover and bring the same energy level and the same tempo and the same aggression as we did against Switzerland. You saw it, when you make teams uncomfortable they will give you the ball back. We have to try to recover and match that type of energy for Sunday and we will see where that takes us.”