Scotland must aspire for Nations League success to ´feel the love´, says Robertson

Andy Robertson insists that Scotland must right their wrongs from a dismal Euro 2024 campaign to ensure they “feel the love again” from supporters.

Robertson, who led Scotland in Germany, was powerless to stop their group stage exit as their wait for knockout football at an international tournament went on.

After surpassing George Young’s record for the most caps as Scotland captain in June, the Liverpool full-back will wear the armband once again for their two Nations League games.

Steve Clarke’s side welcome Poland to Hampden Park on Thursday before travelling to Lisbon to face Portugal three days later.

“The summer was a low for all of us,” Robertson said. “But we have to move on from it. We have to be positive, otherwise it’s pointless being here. We have to believe.

“Okay, we might have some doubters again within our country. Our country was right behind us in the summer.

“We get they’re disappointed and now it’s up to us to drag them along with us again.

“It’s up to us to show on the pitch we’re willing to fight, win games, and put in the hard yards.

“If we do that, we know our fans will come with us as well.”

#SCOPOL pic.twitter.com/AfN5TklzN7

— Scotland National Team (@ScotlandNT) September 5, 2024

Robertson spoke at length with his head coach ahead of their upcoming campaign and said it was the first time a review of a camp had more negatives than positives.

Scotland proved they could compete with Europe’s elite nations during their Euro 2024 qualifying campaign, finishing second behind Spain in Group A, losing just one of their eight qualifying matches.

They have also impressed in the Nations League, winning 10 of their 16 matches in the competition (D2 L4), with their 62.5% win ratio the best of any nation in the tournament.

Clarke has also introduced the likes of Vancouver Whitecaps attacker Ryan Gauld and Robertson’s Liverpool team-mate Ben Doak, who is currently on loan at Middlesbrough for their next two fixtures.

And the 30-year-old believes those additions will help his side in the forward areas, but acknowledges they need to be more consistent against the best in the business.

“We know that’s what we need to improve – that’s the next step for us,” Robertson continued.

“That’s us been to two tournaments now and only got two draws. We’ve not progressed the way we would have liked.

“We need to look at that. And in the build up when we played the stronger nations like England and France we didn’t show how good we can be.

“But also not that far in the past we beat the European champions here at Hampden, we also beat a really good Denmark team. We competed against Spain away as well.

“We need to get more consistent at doing it. We’ve done it previously but not all the time. That’s what we need to get better at, especially at tournaments.”

Training session in progress #SCOPOL pic.twitter.com/48k9d8HhIy

— Scotland National Team (@ScotlandNT) September 4, 2024