OF all the members of the current Scotland squad, Shaun Maloney is probably the least likely to hide from the harsh realities which have been driven home by the friendly defeats to Italy and France.

It is fair to say the Hull City midfielder is something of an introspective character who, despite his considerable talents and many accomplishments in the game, is always prepared to highlight and dwell on both his own failings and those of his team.

There would seem to be much for Maloney, who started the match against the Euro 2016 hosts in the Stade Saint-Symphorien in Metz on Saturday evening just off lone striker Steven Fletcher up front, to ruminate on.

Didier Deschamps’ side netted three goals against Gordon Strachan’s team at the weekend, but it was a minor miracle they did not score many more. It was a one-sided encounter. Exactly the same had been true against Antonio Conte’s charges six days earlier.

Going forward matters were even worse. The national team managed just two attempts at goal– a Matt Ritchie shot against the Azzurri which hit the side netting and a Steven Naismith effort which sailed over the crossbar – during 180 minutes of football.

Yet, Maloney, arguably his country’s most consistent and effective player during an ultimately unsuccessful Euro 2016 qualifying campaign, is far from pessimistic ahead of the start of the Russia 2018 qualifying campaign next season.

For a start, the 33-year-old is doubtful Scotland will face a team as impressive as a French side bookmakers have installed as 3-1 favourites to win the Euro 2016 finals in their homeland in the coming weeks in Group F. Not England and certainly not Slovakia, Slovenia, Lithuania and Malta.

“In the first half you could see they were an excellent side and we struggled to deal with them really,” he said. I have played against real elite international teams and I think they are, at this present time, probably the favourites going into the Euros.

“You see the squad and when you play against them you realise it is a step up in quality. It wasn’t too pleasant to play that first half. We have to be critical of ourselves.”

Having given world champions Germany a decent game in their Euro 2016 qualifiers in both Dortmund and then Glasgow before losing 2-1 and 3-2 respectively, the paucity of the displays against Italy and France, if not the losses, came as a shock to many.

Yes, a few key players were missing. Scott Brown, the captain and a driving force in midfield, may have made a difference, and the team would have been better with regular starter James Morrison involved.

Maloney, however, doesn’t feel there has been a dramatic decline in standards since those meetings with the World Cup winners and is hopeful that, with a full complement of players, they can compete better in future.

“I don’t think we should overreact,” he said. “We didn’t think the gap (with the top nations) was narrowing massively. The Germany game felt pretty similar to the France match. The only difference was that we had set pieces we scored from in that game.”

Strachan has spoken at length and on numerous occasions of his determination for Scotland teams to stop playing “scared football” in recent weeks - and has described us as “a nation of unlucky passers”.

He has helped Brian McClair, his old Manchester United team mate and the current SFA performance director, draft proposals for much-needed changes to the youth football set-up.

Maloney, though, denied that the national team had been frightened when faced with Patrice Evra, Olivier Giroud and Paul Pogba in front of over 25,000 of their countrymen.

Scotland's use of the ball was diabolical at times – at one point, skipper Darren Fletcher passed it out of the park – and retention of possession left much to be desired. But the Hull man felt there were reasons for that in a match which the impressive hosts dominated entirely.

“It’s not been scared football,” he said. “It’s more to do with the fact that when they are in possession you are working so hard to get the ball.

“You are running lots and lots of distance to try and get close to them and the deeper we get, when we get possession you generally find we are all in our own half, we are all pretty close to one another because we’ve defending.

“That’s when we struggle to keep possession. There were occasions when we got four, five passes together and looked a little bit more comfortable. I don’t think it’s scared, you are all shouting for the ball, it is just that we are out of possession for so long when we get possession it is difficult to keep it. It’s a vicious circle.”