KENNY McLean, who scored his first international goal in the nervous 2-0 win over San Marino in Serravalle yesterday, admitted last night that Scotland had deserved to receive flak from their own fans after another bitterly disappointing showing.

McLean, a surprise inclusion in Alex McLeish’s starting line-up, opened the scoring in the Euro 2020 qualifier against the football minnows with a delightful glancing header from a Ryan Fraser cross in just the fourth minute.

However, the Norwich City midfielder and his team mates were abused by the Tartan Army after the final whistle – as they had been following their shocking 3-0 defeat to Kazakhstan following their opening Group I fixture in Nursultan on Thursday.

But the former Aberdeen player had no issues with the reaction of the 2,500-strong away support at the end of the 90 minutes as he acknowledged the performance and 2-0 result had been unacceptable.

“It was the start we hoped for, the start a lot of people expected and it was great for me to get my first goal,” he said. “It's what we set out to do - take the game to them and try to break them down, which we did early on.

“But after that our final ball at times wasn't good enough, we weren't clinical enough and we didn't move the ball quickly enough - it was a frustrating night for everyone.

“The fans as well. They weren't happy and rightly so because we weren't as good as we could have been. We weren’t as good as we know we are.

“We just didn't do things quick enough at times and when that started being the case, when the fans started getting on us, we started getting sloppy and letting it affect us.

“Which we shouldn’t because the fans are entitled to their opinions. They come over here and support us in numbers wherever we go and if we’re not doing the job right we deserve what we get.”

McLean, who has established himself in the Norwich side which is challenging strongly for promotion to the Premier League in England this season since recovering from injury, admitted he had been pleased to start the game and win his sixth cap as well as open his account for his country.

“It’s been a good last couple of months,” he said. “The club are sitting in a really good position, we’ve got eight games to go.

“I've been working hard to get back from injury and it's been a long season, having just started back the last couple of months. So after about six games, to get back into the national squad and get the recognition for the hard work I've done was excellent.

“The manager obviously thought he could trust me, because the squad has been looking good, but he started me tonight which was great. I just try to repay him with performances. This one wasn't the best, but we got the win, which was expected, but no more than that.

“There could have been more goals, we know that. I almost scored before I actually did as well. It was a good start, but after that we just didn’t click. They were stuffy, tough to break down.”