How is Scotland's Premiership player of the year feeling ahead of crucial Euros clash against Switzerland?

The Scottish Premiership player of the year says he is confident the national team can still deliver what they set out to do in the Euros despite their initial heavy defeat.

Lawrence Shankland says he and his Scotland teammates will be aiming to give the Tartan Army support something to cheer by getting a positive result against Switzerland.

But the forward said he knows that their opponents in Cologne on Wednesday night will be tough.

Steve Clarke’s side go into their second group game of Euro 2024 on the back of a disappointing defeat and performance in the opening game against hosts Germany last week.

Scotland need to avoid another defeat to keep any realistic hopes of reaching the knockout stages.

Shankland salutes the supporters following the UEFA EURO 2024 group stage match between Germany and Scotland in Munich. Getty Images

Switzerland have a good record in recent major tournaments. and have reached the knockout stages in their last three World Cups and last two Euros.

The Swiss showed their quality with a convincing 3-1 win over Hungary at the weekend – Shankland insists Scotland are well aware of the challenge that lies ahead.

Speaking to STV Sport in Germany he said: “It will be a tough game. They are obviously a team with a lot of individual quality as well as being a good team and they’ve got a really good record in tournaments as well.

“So we know it will be tough, they obviously controlled much of the first half in their game the other night.

“When you come to a major tournament you’ll always play against top opposition. So that’s the pleasure of being here, and sometimes that can be the difficulty as well.

“So there’s tasks that we need to improve on that we didn’t quite do as well as we could have the other night and hopefully we can do that better in this game.

“That (the 5-1 defeat to Germany) was obviously sore for a couple of days, but the nature of the tournament is you need to move on quickly.

“And the good thing is there’s an opportunity now that we’ve got two games left to go to achieve what we set out to achieve at the start of the group. And that’s what we’re going to try and do.

“There’s three games when you start the group and now there’s two, so the task has become a bit more difficult.”

The 28-year-old, who was the top-scorer in the Scottish Premiership last season, came off the bench late on in Munich and, despite the nature of the defeat, is confident Scotland can up their levels and get a good result against Murat Yakin’s side.

He said: “We know ourselves that we can we can definitely be a lot better than we were the other night. And that’s all what we will look to do and hopefully go and win the game.

“To be here and in the squad we all have a role to play and whether that is from the start or off the bench you just look to go and do your best when you are asked to enter the pitch.

“It will take a good performance, we are playing against a strong team, but it’s a performance we are confident we can put on, we have done it in the past against big teams and won big games, so that is what we will look to do and we will go into it with a positive mindset.

“We will look to give the Tartan Army a positive result and something to celebrate, but we know they will be here in their numbers and ready to back us so we can look forward to that.”