THE day before a match was always one of my favourites as Scotland manager and there will be plenty to occupy Steve Clarke’s thoughts today as well I’m sure.

Tomorrow night’s match against Austria is going to be a real test at the start of the World Cup qualifying campaign and there will likely be a few different permutations running through Steve’s head in terms of personnel and formation decisions.

After the initial doubts over the availability of their players based in Germany, Austria will arrive in Glasgow fully loaded with their best squad available. And that means you can expect to see the likes of David Alaba of Bayern Munich, RB Leipzig’s Marcel Sabitzer and the Eintracht Frankfurt midfielder Stefan Ilsanker all lining up at Hampden.

I’m a big fan of the Bundesliga and Austria boss Franco Foda will have been delighted to have been able to pick all these guys compared to the relatively untried group he had named in the first place.

Thankfully Steve has almost all of his star names available to him too and now it’s just about how he sets them out. I think this is a must-not-lose game at the start of a campaign so I wouldn’t be surprised if he decides to err on the side of caution.

I’m intrigued to see whether he sticks with his favoured three-man defence or switches to a back four, and whether he deploys Scott McTominay in the backline or in midfield.

Then there is the perennial challenge of just how to fit in both Andy Robertson and Kieran Tierney. If he stays with the back three then you could ask Robertson to reprise his left wing-back role with Tierney the left-sided central defender.

If he goes with a four at the back, then do you play Tierney at right-back ahead of Stephen O’Donnell? I’ve always been of the opinion that you should always try to find a way to play both Robertson and Tierney if you can.

I expect Austria will go with a 4-2-3-1 and wonder if Steve might be tempted to match up with them.

If so this would be my team: Gordon; Tierney, McKenna, Gallagher, Robertson; McGregor, McTominay; Fraser, Armstrong, McGinn; Adams.

I know there have been some injury concerns over David Marshall but I’d have no qualms about sticking Craig Gordon in goals if needed. He’s having a great season with Hearts and you know he won’t let his country down if selected.

Similarly, Scott McKenna has had a few injury problems of late but he seems fine now and has been captaining Nottingham Forest so I’d be of a mind to select him.

I like the idea of having McTominay partner Callum McGregor in the two deeper midfielder roles, with Stuart Armstrong in the No.10 position and John McGinn and Ryan Fraser on either side of him.

And I’d go with Che Adams up top. He and Armstrong have that bond at club level and I think Adams is the striker in the squad who is most in form.

In my mind that’s a team that hopefully will be good enough to beat Austria and get us off to a flier.

But there are so many different factors to think about and Steve will also be aware that he has another two games to come later in the week and how best to utilise his full squad for those.

People always say after a game “oh, why did the manager not do this or that?” but I can assure you from experience that we think about all of these different aspects for days or even weeks beforehand.

And Steve will be the same. Whatever players and formation he eventually settles on, you can be sure he will have agonised over every element of it and discussed it with his backroom team at length first of all. Certainly that’s what I used to do!

Like I mentioned at the top of the column, this was always one of my favourite days as Scotland manager.

It’s probably the last time on the pitch you get to impart your tactical gameplan to the players. The little details about how you want to stop the opponents from building, how you negate their preferred pattern of play, and how you as a team then build attacking moves and exploit any defensive weaknesses.

So, for me, matchday minus one as they call it was always the most exciting part of the job. Just sharing the final details with the players and making sure they are fully aware of all the different things expected of them.

There was always a comfortable feeling after that final training session that, as a manager, you had given the players as much guidance as possible.

I don’t know when Steve will name his team but I never gave mine away until as late as possible. Even after that last training session, I would wait if possible as I wanted to keep all the players on their toes and taking it all in. And you didn’t want your plans leaked out either.

Once the match starts you then have your “what if?” in-game planning and how you react to different scenarios unfolding. Sometimes it just comes down to a gut feeling and often as a manager it’s about having the confidence to make those big calls under pressure.

That’s what Steve will have to do if we are to get a positive result tomorrow night.