Steve Clarke insists Scotland achieved a triumph over adversity in Armenia after revealing his players were dead on their feet trying to restore pride in their country.
The dark blues boss was delighted with the spirt of his side after recovering from going a goal down to the minnows and going on to blow them away with a stunning Stuart Armstrong double and long-overdue strikes from Che Adams and John McGinn.
Armenia finished the game with nine men after an ill-disciplined display and Clarke believes the 3,300 mile long-haul flight and a recent punishing schedule has taking a heavy toll on his team and he's refused to offer them up as excuses for recent losses to Ukraine and Ireland.
He said: "We started the game slowly, there was a reaction to the long journey and the flight. There’s a lot of fatigue in the players’ legs that we haven’t really spoken about too much, because we don’t want to be seen to be making excuses. But it was there and they got in behind us and the players showed great character to come back.
“It was a difficult schedule for the players. It was difficult, but we haven't made excuses until now. There's no excuses for the two games that we lost. Two wins against Armenia are not going to make this international camp a good camp, because it wasn't.
"We failed on our primary objective – to get to the World Cup. We failed on that and we had a really bad performance in Dublin, which put us on the back foot again. It's nice to bounce back but there is work to do."
Clarke heaped praise on his three goal scorers and intends to regroup after the summer and launch a bid to top the Nations League table.
He said: "I’m delighted for Stuart, Che Adams and John McGinn – the three players we put in forward positions. It showed that our forward players can score goals. It was a game we wanted to win and a game we probably had to win, although not necessarily mathematically.
"It gives us the chance to go into the games in September with a realistic chance of topping the group and that’s what we wanted."
Clarke was booed by the Tartan Army at full-time in Dublin at the weekend but he believes they still have their back as he brushed off the critics who have piled on after the 3-0 thrashing the Aviva Stadium.
He said: “The realistic fans are fantastic. The people who travel all the way over here, I've got nothing but praise for them. I am glad they saw a good performance. The realistic fans know what we are doing and what we are trying to do. The rest of it? That's outwith our control."
There was an ugly end to the night in Armenia as fans through water bottles at the referee and one appeared to strike Callum McGregor but Clarke insists it all started to get out of hand after a poor challenge on Lewis Ferguson.
To be fair to their coaching staff, they were on the pitch pretty quickly and made sure everyone was calm. Listen, there were some hard tackles towards the end of the game and professional players are always going to react to them.
"But it was nothing. I was more concerned about the bottles being thrown on the pitch after the tackle on Lewis. I saw one bouncing on the middle of the pitch, it was a hell of a throw.
"Don’t forget those challenges and tackles come as a result of us dominating possession, moving the ball quickly and playing quick one-twos.
"That’s a consequence of having control of the game. I understand what their coach is saying about the red card but you still have to capitalise and we capitalised just before half-time and then immediately after half-time, and the game was done after that."
