McTominay: No doom and gloom as we aim to be greatest ever Scotland side

Scott McTominay says there is “no doom and gloom” amongst the Scotland squad despite their heavy defeat to The Netherlands and insists they are aiming to become the country’s most successful national side ever.

The Manchester United midfielder played the full 90 minutes of the 4-0 loss in Amsterdam on Friday when a late defensive collapse made the score-line look a lot worse than the performance merited.

And as Steve Clarke’s side prepare to host Northern Ireland on Tuesday, McTominay says the squad remain positive as they prepare for Euro 2024.

Scotland will take part in the tournament’s opening game against hosts Germany on June 14 as they look to qualify from their group, that also includes Switzerland and Hungary, for the first time ever.

And McTominay believes there is enough quality in the squad to make history this summer.

Speaking to the media on Monday, the 27-year-old who has nine goals for Man Utd this season, said: “We were all the changing room after the (Netherlands) game disappointed as we thought we played well enough to get a result.

“But I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, we are on red alert now and looking at every small detail from the game that we want to improve on, if we go there and win 2-1 or 3-2 or whatever, and we probably deservedly to win the game so a 4-0 defeat was a bit of an injustice, but with a win you could get too complacent, too excited and a bit ahead of yourself and take your foot off the gas, so sometimes a little kick in the teeth is not the worst thing in the world to get everything back to the standards that we know we are capable off.

“The next three games are huge to regain our form, but in my opinion I don’t think our confidence has dipped and we played some good stuff on Friday so it’s not all doom and gloom, it might seem that way because of recent results but we want to keep pushing and show everyone that we are a good team and show what we capable of with the squad we have, that in my opinion is really good.

“The last European championships was different with all the Covid stuff going on and it felt a bit like coming and going.

“But this time we have our base camp and everyone will be in Germany and it feels more like a proper tournament that we think we are ready for and we want to go there with full fire in our belly and have no regrets.

“We’ve had the sour moments and the tough moments, like the defeat to Croatia, so we know what to expect and we don’t want to have those feelings again.

“We want to be the most successful Scotland team in history to go there and show that we can do it and I have full belief in the squad and the manager and his coaching staff as well.”