Kris Boyd today warned the Tartan Army not to expect an easy night against Liechtenstein in tomorrow’s must-win European qualifier at Hampden.

The Middlesbrough striker hopes to score his first Scotland goal in three years if he is picked to partner Kenny Miller against the Euro 2012 minnows.

But he warned Scotland will have to be as focused and sharp as they were when they last hammered a small country, the 6-0 rout of the Faroe Islands in a Euro 2008 qualifier four years ago.

Boyd scored twice that day and all the other goals came from players who are in Craig Levein’s current squad – Miller, skipper Darren Fletcher, James McFadden and Garry O’Connor.

“I got two against the Faroes back then and that’s the kind of performance we need again,” said the former Rangers favourite.

“You always want a goal to get a performance started and hopefully we’ll get that. But it’s not going to be easy, there aren’t any easy games in European football. We have to play at the same tempo for the 90 minutes.

“Liechtenstein will come to defend. We have come up against that on numerous occasions and it’s not going to change when you play against the minnows. We are expected to win, but it’s not going to be as easy as everybody thinks.”

Group I began predictably for Liechtenstein when they were thumped 4-0 at home by Spain on Friday – Fernando Torres, David Villa and David Silva all scored – but Boyd insisted that would not influence how the outsiders would approach their visit to Hampden.

“It won’t change anything. They will go into every game with the same plan. Spain are the world champions, they are the best team in the world.

“We are nowhere near that, but we know that if we give it our best shot we have a chance of getting the three points.”

Boyd was first capped by Walter Smith in 2006 and scored twice on his debut against Bulgaria.

At one point his Scotland stats were four goals from three appearances, but being left on the bench and then retiring from international football under former boss George Burley – only to return under Levein – means he is still on only seven goals from 16 appearances.

His last goal came against Lithuania at Hampden in September, 2007. A home game against Liechtenstein looks exactly the sort of fixture ideally suited to Boyd’s talent for snapping up half-chances in a game his team is dominating, although he insisted he wanted to play in every Scot-land match.

“I’m no different from any other footballer. Hopefully I’ll get the chance tomorrow night. We were obviously disappointed after the draw in Lithuania.

“We dominated the game, but didn’t have many chances or threaten very much apart from Kenny’s header in the second half. But, for having so much possession, we’re looking to do better. It’s hard to say if the draw did any damage to our hopes or not.

“You can never tell until the group has finished and you see the overall picture. Maybe we will rue the fact that we’ve not picked up three points over there.

“But there’s a long way to go. If you are on the road and you pick up a point you are generally happy with that. I just think that with the way the game went we felt we should have won it.

“It was a better performance than some of our recent games. I think everyone will be confident going into tomorrow’s game.

“Hopefully we’ll have a full house at Hampden and if they can get behind us and we get an early goal then that can get us started. We need a victory to get our campaign going.”