Clarke has taken Scotland to two European Championships and they've scored three goals in six games in those tournaments, one of them an own goal against Germany and another from a Scott McTominay shot against Switzerland that found the net only after a huge deflection.
Only one Scottish player has scored directly in any of those group games - Callum McGregor against Croatia in Clarke's first Euros.
The concern, therefore, is that Clarke doesn't see fit to shake things up, to gamble a little. As a creature of habit, we could almost predict which way he's going to go on all of this.
He'll have five or six strikers/wingers in his squad - Che Adams, Lawrence Shankland, Lyndon Dykes, George Hirst, Tommy Conway and Ben Gannon-Doak. He knows them, he trusts them and it would be a huge surprise if he doesn't pick them.
The hope - forlorn, most likely - is that he still has an open mind on one or maybe two positions in that lot.
Comparing levels is not easy. How does a goal in the Scottish Premiership compare to a goal in the English Championship or Italy's Serie A? And how about the relative strength of the team it's scored for against the team it's scored against?
A Shankland goal against the Old Firm versus an Adams goal against Roma, currently sixth in the table. How do you weigh them up?
Crudely, if you constructed a league table of Clarke's options at centre-forward based on this season's tallies of goals scored, minutes-per-goal and goals-per-shots in club football then this is how it would read.
First - Ross Stewart of Southampton. Second - Oli McBurnie of Hull City. Third - Lawrence Shankland of Heart of Midlothian. Fourth - George Hirst of Ipswich Town. Fifth - Kieron Bowie of Hibernian and now Hellas Verona. Sixth - Che Adams of Torino. Seventh - Tommy Conway of Middlesbrough. Eighth - Lyndon Dykes of Birmingham City and now Charlton Athletic.
On Wednesday evening, Stewart scored for Southampton, currently fourth in the English Championship but only three points off an automatic promotion spot to the Premier League.
It was his sixth goal in 11 games and his ninth in 28 in a season that has been curtailed by injury. He missed 16 matches. Stewart has been desperately unlucky in that regard for three seasons, but he looks fit and well now.
The former Ross County and Sunderland player scored the winner that put Fulham out of the FA Cup in March and scored again when Southampton claimed Arsenal's scalp in April.
On Saturday evening, Stewart will feature in the semi-final against Manchester City. The fact that Stewart is barely mentioned as a possible squad player in America is nuts.
This season, he's scored a goal every 120 minutes with a shots–per-goal figure of 3.2. He has a conversion rate of 31%. That's remarkably high. When he plays, he's been one of the-most efficient goalscorers in the entire league.
Clarke believes in loyalty to his players, to the ones who got the team to the World Cup in the first place. Stewart is not one of those guys, but on form he could be the kind of striker to help keep Scotland in America beyond the group stage.