Steve Clarke deserves a knighthood and a statue outside Hampden Park for his achievements as Scotland manager.That is the view of former national team assistant boss Mark McGhee, who is hugely grateful for Clarke’s work despite a disappointing 2026 World Cup campaign.Clarke has resigned as Scotland manager following their World Cup exitGettyClarke has resigned from his role after seven years in charge with Scotland missing out on a place in the last 32 on goal difference having finished 11th out of 12 third-placed teams.However, McGhee believes Clarke still deserves plenty of credit from his tenure as manager.Under Clarke, Scotland qualified for three out of a possible four major tournaments.Meanwhile, this summer’s World Cup marked their first appearance at the finals for 28 years.McGhee has even gone as far as to call for Clarke to be knighted after former England manager Gareth Southgate received the same honour.Sir Steve Clarke?Reacting to his decision to step down on talkSPORT Daily’s World Cup podcast, McGhee said: “I have my feelings about it and I think the performance here in the competition is something else other than the qualification and I think Steve deserves a huge amount of credit for three qualifications, two European Championships and a World Cup.“The joy that it’s brought, we’ve seen it, we saw it in Boston, we’ve seen it in Miami. The joy that it’s brought to the Tartan Army.“The opportunity it’s given the Tartan Army to promote Scotland as a country and to take the reputation overseas, to improve on it and to raise it has left Scotland in such a good light after this competition and Steve Clarke gets all the credit for that.“And I’m going to go one step further, I’ve been away and I’ve looked at the comparisons and I’ve made comparisons with Gareth Southgate.Southgate was knighted after reaching back-to-back Euros finals with EnglandPA“They both took over when things weren’t at their best and they had to do certain things with the squad. The first thing both of them did was Steve made Scotland, and Gareth made England, much harder to beat.“And in a way, over the seven years Gareth Southgate raised the expectations, raised the ceilings of expectation for England and in a sense Steve Clarke maybe hasn’t the ceiling but he’s certainly raised the floor.“What he’s done is, he’s made them a country now that expect to qualify for competitions and I’m going to say this, I think it’s now Sir Gareth Southgate and I don’t see that there’s any doubt, Steve Clarke has every right to claim a knighthood.“And I would not object to the fact that in seven years, three qualifications, magnificent for the country, why not Sir Steve Clarke.”Across 81 matches as manager, Clarke claimed 38 wins with just 29 defeats.However, Scotland remain without a knockout appearance at a major tournament.Clarke deserves at least a statue for his achievements as Scotland boss, says McGheeGetty‘Clarke deserves a statue’McGhee continued: “One of the things I feel very strongly about is, I keep hearing people saying that this is the best group of Scotland players ever and I think that is absolute nonsense.“You go back to the Graeme Souness, Kenny Dalglish and those eras, there was a different level of players in those days.“We have some really great players now in the likes of John McGinn and (Scott) McTominay and we’re going to have some other ones grow with the likes of Ben Gannon-Doak in there.“But I don’t see it as the strongest Scotland squad ever so therefore Steve Clarke deserves a lot of credit for getting what I think is a fairly ordinary group of players to three major competitions.“And I think that deserves a huge amount of credit and I still believe he deserves, at worst, a statue outside Hampden.”Clarke had been handed a new four-year deal prior to the World Cup through to the summer of 2030.However, having won just one of their three group stage matches he left the role with immediate effect.Despite beating Haiti in their opener, subsequent defeats to Morocco and Brazil saw Scotland get eliminated on goal difference.World Cup WhatsAppDon't miss an update from talkSPORT in our dedicated World Cup WhatsApp channel.Search for ‘talkSPORT World Cup’ in your ‘Updates’ tab on WhatsApp and we’ll drop the proper, unfiltered football chat straight to your lock screen—no fluff, just pure talkSPORT energy.It’s where you’ll find out all the new rules to watch out for, England and Scotland reaction and big match player ratings. Plus there will be loads of debates on the biggest talking points as Haaland, Mbappe, Kane and the biggest names in football descend on America, Canada and Mexico.