ALEX McLeish last night vowed to silence the jeers of the Scotland supporters - by winning their final two Nations League matches.
McLeish's players were booed off the park by their own fans in the Sammy Ofer Stadium here after the 2-1 defeat to Israel.
He felt the loss of experienced centre half Charlie Mulgrew to injury at half-time and the "soft" second-half ordering off of John Souttar had cost the national team.
But he insisted his men - who take on Albania away and Israel at home in their final two Group C League 1 matches next month - can recover from the reverse and get their followers back onside.
“We have to pick it up, simple as that," he said. "That’s what it’s like in football you go on to the next one. We are obviously going to get a bit of stick for this. That’s what I expect from Scottish people. "It’s up to us to bounce back. Whatever it takes. I will look to win both games, but whatever it takes.
“The fans want to win. I’m right behind the fans. Obviously they give the players energy if they support them and I urge the fans to support the players.”
McLeish continued: “Did we ever say we were at a level where we should be qualifying for major tournaments? We’ve not said that.
"We know we’re trying to build to being a team that can win and get points consistently and we’re still not quite at that level. We’re trying to build towards it.
"None of us, the coaches watching the games, thought that they (Israel) were a right bad team. They have some good players there.
"(Munas) Dabbur is clever. He fooled the referee in both challenges by John Souttar. He got a soft booking, the first one, and then the sending off.
"That’s an experienced players in European football. Don’t think they’re mugs and we should be wiping the floor with them.”
“I thought it (the red card) was soft, very, very soft. The ref was 60 yards away, he wasn’t up with play. Maybe he got something in his ear.
“We had a long way to go playing with 10, it’s never easy ten against 11 and Israel had one or two players in good form. They deserved it on the night although we’re disappointed with the goals we lost.
"The players were obviously gutted. No player is ever happy to lose a game of football and young John was devastated to get sent off and caught at that particular moment. Young player are allowed to make mistakes but in international football it can be devastating.
"Maybe John will say he should have played it quicker. We were going to take John off. It was really ill timing for us. Unfortunately play stopped for a free-kick for them and a red card for John."
Meanwhile, McLeish, whose team arrived in Israel on Wednesday evening, revealed his players had struggled in the heat.
Asked if Scotland should travelled earlier in order to acclimatise, he said: “Maybe, maybe, but we spoke about it for a long time with the performance analysts and they gave the reasons and we all bought into it.
"Some teams fly out on the day of games now so I don’t think we use that as an excuse that we were tired. Israel are used to the heat a lot of our players were dying on their feet. It’s not easy. A lot of them were tired.”
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