Graeme Souness insists he is unsure why Scotland have not produced as many quality players in recent years.
The 70-year-old also feels England boss Gareth Southgate has been lucky with the players at his disposal.
Simon Jordan asked Souness on talkSPORT: "In your time, you look at yourself, [Kenny] Dalglish, [Alan] Hansen, Joe Jordan was a great centre forward, Archie Gemmell...these players were top players. What has happened to Scottish football that it seems to have just drifted away?"
Souness replied: "I think it's a generation thing. You know, Southgate is lucky. When you're a manager of a national team, you're totally reliant on what the nation is throwing up at that particular time.
"You can't buy or train players. If you analyse how many days you have actually to work with them, it's not a lot - you can't change them.
"You're ticking them over and you're picking them because you're seen them doing good things for their club.
"It's a generation thing. We've not produced them for a couple of decades, I don't know why - but the current group are the best we've had for a couple of decades.
"The Euros here in England were a good group and now I think this is better
Souness also launched a tirade regarding Steve Clarke's side's recent 3-1 friendly defeat to England.
Goals from Phil Foden, Jude Bellingham and Harry Kane gave the visitors a comfortable win at Hampden.
And the former Liverpool and Rangers hero was hoping for more from the fixture.
"[Scott] McTominay is our main threat for goals from midfield, and if we had a goalscorer that would be great because we're very solid, we know what we're all doing, good defensively," he continued.
"But the biggest question mark - more than a striker - is that we didn't believe.
"The first thing you want to do against England at Hampden, is you want to put a few of them on their ar**s and say 'come on then, let's see if you're up for it!'.
"That night, England started like that and got amongst them, and we didn't respond.
"It was a one-sided game. When I played, we were playing for the biggest teams - when I played against England, but I knew we were every bit as good as them and better.
"We had no inferiority complex. The players did at Hampden and that disappointed me."
