Graeme Souness claims Ryan Porteous tackle showed Scotland lack of class and we 'can't outplay' Switzerland

Graeme Souness reckons Ryan Porteous' Scotland red card against Germany epitomised the gulf in class between the two sides.

Friday night's eagerly anticipated Euro 2024 opener fell flat and the game was already getting away from Steve Clarke's men at 2-0 when the Watford defender lunged in to try and stop Ilkay Gundogan from scoring. He was given his marching orders after catching the Barcelona man with a nasty tackle.

Kai Havertz converted the spot kick and the hosts went on to rack up a convincing 5-1 scoreline as our campaign got off to a disastrous start. Souness reckons the fact it was Hornets player going in on a Barca star only served to highlight the differences between the teams.

He told William Hill's Three Up Front podcast: "There was nothing about Scotland’s performance that was worthy of any note – they didn’t turn up. As a player, you go into the game thinking that you can’t do anything daft in the early part, you need to weather the storm and not concede early. After 10 minutes they were 1-0 down and, although it was a tough ask to play the hosts in the opening game, never at any time during the 90 minutes did they have anything to shout about. It was a miserable evening.

"The red card epitomised what went wrong. Ryan Porteous lunged into İlkay Gündoğan in the box, right on half-time. That was a Watford player almost breaking the leg of a Barcelona player, the gap between Watford and Barcelona sums up the difference between the class of the two teams.

“It all starts with winning your own battle. Not a single Scotland player could have come off that pitch and say they won their individual battle. None of them.”

"Scotland have to make a game of it against Switzerland,” said Souness. “The Swiss are no mugs, they look like a good outfit. Scotland need to have a go, be aggressive and give the fans something to shout about.

Ahead of the second game against Switzerland this evening, the Rangers and Liverpool hero doesn't feel the Scots can look to outplay either them, or Hungary on Sunday.

He added: "Scotland’s game plan has to be counter-attacking and getting goals from set-pieces. They were never going to out-football Germany, nor will they do that to Switzerland or Hungary. That’s not to say that they can’t win football matches. They need to defend properly with full concentration, then nick a goal on the break or from a set-piece. They’re not going to have the majority of possession in either of their next two games.”