KRIS Boyd fears that Scotland have yet to reach rock bottom. For all the strength of the opposition put up by Belgium and Russia, Steve Clarke’s side have now hit depths not reached since the dark days of Berti Vogts in losing the last four matches by a combined aggregate score of 13-1. The Sky Sports pundit, who worked under Clarke at Kilmarnock, said last night that he feels an overhaul of the national team is required, because players are turning up “expecting to be beaten”.

“Again, it has been set plays,” Boyd told Sky Sports News. “There is no doubt that Scotland were in the game in terms of being compact and hard to beat. But it is not good enough. People will go back to the way Steve Clarke had us playing at Kilmarnock.

“We were compact and hard to beat but we had a threat, we always had an out ball. And I don’t see it with Scotland, whether it is because we have lost a lot of games now and people are turning up expecting to be beaten. It gets to 57 minutes and you are still expecting Russia to score against us, because that is what happens now with Scotland, we lose games of football.

“There is no doubt there is a massive overhaul needing done,” he added. “But where are the players? We can’t go and sign them. Or bring them in and get them to play for us. I’ve said before that we’ve not hit rock bottom and I firmly believe that we haven’t.

“It is not a quick fix. But it has been in decline for a number of years now. When we start looking at positions, I don’t think there will be a No 9 in a few years’ time. Centre halves are hard to come by, full backs are now failed wingers as such, they don’t know how to defend. Russia are No 42 in the world for a reason, we made them look better than they are. I think they have two players in [Aleksandr] Golovin and the big man up front [Artem Dzyuba] who will cause anyone problems.”

Boyd feels Clarke must take a page out of Michael O’Neill’s book at Northern Ireland when it comes to a group used to losing. “It is a similar scenario to Michael O’Neill going into Northern Ireland,” he said. “Up until 50/60 minutes Northern Ireland were in games of football but there were players in that Northern Ireland squad who hadn’t won a game for a year, 13/14 months.

“I fully expect to beat San Marino but questions will be asked if we don’t beat them by five or six goals. More important we have to find an identity again. We have good players for their teams but when they pull on that Scotland jersey it isn’t working. They are going to have to change their attitude when they go away with the national team because we need to get results.”