Scotland have found the perfect replacement for Steve Clarke who ticks every box

David Moyes has not been able to help himself doing a little bit of scouting while in Germany working as pundit for the BBC.

He has tried to enjoy himself, to let himself relax and have a beer when he is not working in the studio on a game. But he has been unable to stop the analyst in his head examining players, analysing strengths and weaknesses, considering how much he might offer for them if he were still manager a club.

It is a tap the 61-year-old will probably never be able to turn off.

Rarely has there been a Scottish manager of such vast experience out of work and ready to take charge of the national team at a time when it seems the natural course of the current incumbent, Steve Clarke, has been run.

Sat in the studio, Moyes spoke passionately and assertively about what Scotland needed to do at half-time of the eventual defeat to Hungary that knocked his country out of Euro 2024 — failing yet again to progress beyond a major group stage for the first time, limping out with only 17 shots, the lowest of any team this tournament and joint lowest ever.

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Moyes would be perfect for international management, and for Scotland.

His Everton sides of the 2000s were the poster boys for a team being greater than the sum of their parts. That feels like a vital attribute for any Scotland manager.

At West Ham he showed he has the skillset to navigate knockout football — perhaps the defining attribute of an international manager — by guiding the club to the Europa Conference League final and a first major trophy in almost half a century, in addition to some strong Premier League finishes.

He helped guide Declan Rice from teenager to £100m central midfield colossus, with an arm around the shoulder but also a firm hand, unafraid at times to call Rice out with legitimate criticism, which will have prepared him well for the sort of flack that England have had in the past week.

Moyes still favours the eye over the algorithm, preferring to watch players in real life rather than on a laptop screen — looking out for signs and signals, actions that reveal character traits, how they walk out from the dressing room, how they warm-up, how they speak to other players, or respond to being substituted. Things that can be easily missed when relying on a camera set up by someone else.

It is the same approach Gareth Southgate takes to managing England, making it a full-time job when previous managers were almost part-timers, scouring the country, attending multiple games per week. You would imagine Moyes would attack the job with the same intensity.

Before he signed Joleon Lescott for Everton in 2006 he watched the defender play more than 20 times and it is that voracity for identifying talent that would lend itself to taking charge of a country and finding the right alchemy of players for a tournament squad.

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He is a shrewd, seasoned observer of the game, recognising its nuances and trends, its tweaks and changes, while also cutting through the nonsense. When he worked as a pundit for the BBC at Euro 2012 he noted how international football was, essentially, no longer as good as club level, something that has become much clearer only in recent years.

When I wrote about Moyes last year and how he had squeezed so much out of West Ham, a source who worked with the Scot and knows him well told me: “Moyes is able to make a star out of someone who might not necessarily be a star. He puts things together to make them comfortable on the pitch. Through personal chats and investing time he got the best out of them.

“He lets players know he’s there for them, he tells them what they need to do for the team but also gives them the freedom and belief to go out and perform to the level he knows they can.”

It’s exactly what is required of international management, the ability to turn average players into superheroes for a short, intense period.

West Ham decided to part ways at the end of the season. An obvious next step in his career has emerged.