Many Scotland fans will be tuning into the Euro 2024 quarter-final this evening cheering on Switzerland when they face England. But at the same time, there is every chance feelings of envy, frustration and ultimately disappointment remain.

Scotland have been home for 12 days after being played out of their Garmisch-Partenkirchen base by a Bavaria oompah band, producing perhaps the most memorable aspect of their time in Germany. Yet, for so many supporters, it was meant to be so different. Scotland were meant to be in Switzerland's position having finished second in the group. Instead of bottom with one point.

The questions are still being asked of what went wrong. The soul searching still taking place. The only surprise has been the lack of think pieces mentioning summer football or blaming plastic pitches for why it went wrong.

To Heart of Midlothian boss Steven Naismith, the answer is more straightforward: The team were not at the same level as they were 12-15 months previous when Norway and Spain were slain.

"Ultimately, everybody is disappointed," he said.  "Getting to the Euros probably couldn't have gone any better. The tournament was the polar opposite of that. I think everything that could go wrong, went wrong.

"You can talk about the selection or tactics. A huge part for me is that about half of our squad either went into the tournament injured or just coming back from injury. You could look at every player in that category and see that they aren't actually playing their best football. That killed us, I think.

"We looked a wee bit sluggish at times, a bit off it, like we didn't have that power and energy we had against Spain or away to Norway in the qualifiers.

"It's not that the players are not fit. When you come back from injury, players take time to get that sharpness. I think that's the biggest thing we missed. Ultimately, there is nothing you can really do about it. We are not a nation with a bank of 26 first picks then another bank of 26 back-ups. We started to compromise."

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Naismith provided the example of Anthony Ralston, the Celtic right-back who "became the No.1 right-back" after injuries to Aaron Hickey and Nathan Patterson.

"He is an inexperienced Scotland player," he said. "He isn't going to go into the games risking deadly passes because he is going to think: 'I'm going to go in and make sure I don't make a mistake.' That impacts the flow of the team. All these things, I think, played the biggest part in us having a disappointing tournament."

But what of Steve Clarke?

Naismith is perfectly placed to offer his assessment of the Scotland boss having worked with him in the national team setup prior to becoming Hearts head coach.

He views the reaction as "raw emotion" due to how positive everyone was going into the tournament. Only for the provoking of a "terrible feeling" from the defeat to Germany in the tournament opener.

"At the end of it, it's Scotland," Naismith said. "Everybody has the usual reaction: 'Right, rip everything up, let's tear it up and move on.' We aren't going to move a full squad on and bring in new players. The manager, throughout the whole time I was there, had a bigger and longer-term plan. There was loads of stuff happening to build a consistency in getting to tournaments. We have done that now, getting to two tournaments out of the last three.

Scotland boss Steve Clarke.Scotland boss Steve Clarke. (Image: PA)

"The disappointment and frustration is: Did we go through the tournament and do as well as we should have? No. That doesn't mean it's the end of the road. I would be confident in saying I don't think that has crossed the manager's mind at all."

If you look at it subjectively, it's a much higher risk of taking strides back the way if you change the manager at this moment in time. From knowing him, after every tournament, he reviews everything: 'Where can we get better? Where can we improve?'

"After the disappointment of not making the World Cup and losing to Ukraine, the changes in the dynamic were made, you could argue Scotland had their best campaign for however many years. That was an improvement. He will 100 per cent have looked over the tournament, looked at what we could do better or differently.

"I don't think the people making the decisions will have a hard decision to make, or be influenced by people's initial disappointment."