It was great to get on the scoresheet. As you get older you feel as if you need to keep contributing. Younger prospects if they don’t have a good game you know they will still be around but as you get older you need to keep producing. I won us the penalty against Israel and I was on the scoresheet tonight.Steven Naismith has warned that Scotland need to wake up defensively if they are to make any kind of progress as a team.
“The feeling is exactly the same as Belgium, you come away thinking we did ok – but individual mistakes cost you at this level and the same thing has happened again,” bemoaned Naismith.
“The fortunate thing with those two games is they were friendlies, but we need to cut them out.
“It’s as simple as that.
“Coming on the back of the Israel game it’s not a great ending to the month but international football is like that, last month everything was great.”
The Hearts forward netted a late consolation with the last meaningful kick of the ball in the 3-1 defeat to Portugal at Hampden for his 9th international goal from 49 caps.
And despite it counting for little other than a numerical note, Naismith believes that it may strengthen his hand in terms of hanging onto the striker’s shirt.
“It was great to get on the scoresheet,” he said. “As you get older you feel as if you need to keep contributing. Younger prospects if they don’t have a good game you know they will still be around but as you get older you need to keep producing. I won us the penalty against Israel and I was on the scoresheet tonight.
“But if you look over the last four games we have had three decent performances and one bad one which has cost us and it turns the group into a two-game group.
“Now we need to make sure we do our job next month and come out on top of the group. That’s what we have to focus on.
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