COACH Stuart McCall admits Scotland could end up on the wrong end of two hidings when they take on Italy and France in friendlies over the coming weeks. The Scots face Antonio Conte’s Italian all-stars in Malta on Sunday before travelling to face the French in Metz the following Saturday. With both sides finalising their preparations ahead of the start of Euro 2016 and the Scots with little to play for, there is a real danger of Gordon Strachan’s men suffering two morale-crushing defeats. McCall acknowledged as much but hoped the quality of the opposition would inspire the Scottish players to similarly raise their game.

He said: “When the games were mentioned, the staff knew they would be tough. We’re up against two top-class sides who are building for the Euros and they want to do well. So it will be two really tough games.

"There's always that thought at the back of your mind that we don't want this to harm us going forward. We want two strong performances as well as results. Our last two games against Denmark and the Czechs brought two great results but the performances could have been a lot better. We want to balance it.

"We don't obviously want to be on the end of a couple of heavy defeats. The mentality of the lads is good. A lot of them have come back from holidays to join up, so they want to be here. As a player, you want to play against the best. Although they’re friendlies, they will be competitive games. We can't just turn up and go through the motions. The opposition won't have that mindset because they're all playing for a start in the first game at the Euros. Our lads, difficult as it might be, have to have that too.”

McCall admitted it is still hard to swallow that Scotland won’t be at the finals in France this summer. He added: “When the Euros come on, I think I'll go away for three weeks. You'll be watching Ireland and Poland thinking: “We drew twice with Poland and beat Ireland and drew with them”. We're undefeated against these teams, yet they're in the finals. It going to be sore. You see all the fans from all home nations and it's going to be tough. There's nothing we can do about it. We just need to take our medicine and make sure we do our best in the next campaign.”