Steve Clarke tells Scotland stars to go easy on themselves despite harsh lessons as Gunn shielded from blunder blowback

Steve Clarke watched Cristiano Ronaldo break Scottish hearts here in Lisbon and then urged his players not to beat themselves up over it.

Clarke’s side mounted a heroic effort to come within three minutes of a historic first point in the top flight of the Nations League against the big guns of Portugal at Benfica’s Stadium of Light. But veteran Ronaldo - who was thrown on from the bench at half time when Scotland were 1-0 up through Scott McTominay’s opener - came up with the killer touch from close range to win it for the home side with 87 minutes on the clock.

Clarke’s players looked devastated as they trudged off the pitch on the back of a second straight defeat following last week’s loss at home to Poland. But a defiant Clarke said: “The lesson is not to be too hard on themselves. Obviously they’ll be disappointed but I think I think there’s been a lot of positives - if you can ignore the results.

“But we're professionals. So it's disappointing to come out of two games where I feel we played very well in both games and don't have anything to show for it. Like I said, it's a level where the lessons are harsh. But it's important - and I spoke to the players about it in the dressing room about this - not to be too hard on themselves.

“Obviously they’re disappointed, but they have to understand the work that we're doing. After the summer we decided to change the system a little bit for these two matches. I think you see that the players have done good work in not a lot of time.

“That's why I'm so disappointed for them, because they've put so much into these two games. They've got to be disappointed because they're professionals. They want to win, they want to do well for their country. That's the nature of the squad of