But there was no place for McBurnie despite scoring twice as many goals as Stewart in the Championship this season.
McBurnie will get the chance to add more and help his side to the Premier League in Saturday’s play-off final, which will now be against Middlesbrough after Stewart’s Southampton were expelled for spying on opponents.
Clarke revealed he had conversations with some of the players who had not made the squad, but McBurnie was most certainly not among those.
The Scotland head coach bristled when reminded that McBurnie had revealed publicly that he had called him previously to ask about his own five-year exile from the national set-up.
“I thought that was a private conversation, to be honest,” Clarke said. “It shouldn’t have gone to the media.”
When pushed on whether there was a personality clash with McBurnie, Clarke added: “You know the way I work – I tend to stick with players that I’ve had before.
“I trust them, they know what I expect from them and that’s it. It’s just a natural selection process, natural in my head anyway, maybe not natural in everybody else’s.”
Later in the day, McBurnie told The Sun “one of the lads in the squad messaged me this morning” as he did not want the striker to learn the news from the media.
He claimed that he had “not heard anything” direct from Clarke and admitted it had “been tough” as he “tried everything I could to get into that squad and I’ve come up short”.
When asked about his own contract, Clarke had cryptically revealed “there will be plenty of time to to talk about me, for good or for bad”.
After seven years in charge, Clarke is out of contract after the tournament and had indicated he would like his situation resolved before it all gets underway on 11 June.
When pressed that he had been clear previously that he wanted the situation clarified before he sets off for the United States, Clarke replied: “Hopefully, yes, that would be the plan. I’m pretty sure it will be.”