Norwich City defender Grant Hanley rejected any suggestion Scotland froze on the big stage as they look to get their Euro2024 campaign back on track against Switzerland.

Hanley, along with club mates Angus Gunn and Kenny McLean, all finished Friday’s opening night 5-1 mauling to hosts Germany in Munich.

Steve Clarke’s squad must now bounce back against the Swiss on Wednesday to stand any chance of becoming the first Scottish side to qualify for the knock out stages of a major tournament.

“It happens in football,” said Hanley, speaking at a press conference on Monday.

“You have periods where performances and results go well, particularly if we add a defensive point of view where you are not conceding goals, and the answer for us is to get back to basics and really concentrate on where and why we had success before.

“It is difficult to put your finger on.

“From the players’ point of view, our main work comes on the training pitch to do what we can to improve.

“We have had a couple of days to put it to bed. The manager had a couple of meetings last night to go over it and put that behind us, draw a line under it and look forward to the next game.

“We are talking about playing at the top level, we are talking about playing against a top side.

“These games are huge, it is a big occasion and everyone wants to play on those types of nights.

“Obviously there is maybe added nerves, but I don’t think that is something we can use as an excuse as we didn’t perform like we wanted to.

“Again, we have drawn a line under that and our main focus is what we have got going forward.”

Hanley dismissed Clarke’s post-match assertion he had clouded the players’ judgment against the Germans, by giving them too much information.

 “I don’t think so,” he said. “From a players’ point of view we have to look at ourselves first and look at how we approached the game, how we performed and the reasons for that.

“We will look at the reasons why we maybe never turned up as we would have hoped to have done or performed the way we can perform to have a positive performance and a positive result.

“This is a group that has been together for quite a while now and we have had our ups and downs together.

“So I think we have to take confidence from the group, that we have shown before that we have bounced back from negative results. So that will be our focus again.

“Obviously we want to put Friday night behind us and give ourselves a better chance to get a result.”

Hanley and the rest of the Scotland camp watched an impressive Switzerland beat Hungary 3-1 in their first game.

He said: “The lads watched the game and Switzerland has some really good quality in the side.

“I am hoping that we turn up and are prepared for the game and put on a performance like we have been doing for a few years.

“We have a massive opportunity to be successful again.

“With hard work we will make sure we prepare and give our all again.”