Celtic midfielder Callum McGregor admitted that Scotland had to win last night’s Nations League campaign with a win in order to banish the negativity around the national team.

An Albanian own-goal and a Steven Naismith header gave Alex McLeish’s sided victory and McGregor is optimistic that is can lay the foundation for further progress.

“This game was always the most important one because it was a competitive tie,” he said. “If we hadn’t won tonight then the negativity would have started to grow and grow. As it is, we got the win and it puts us level on points with them with a game in hand as well – and we’ll go again next month.

“We’re learning all the time and the manager is trying to get his points across and you can see us getting there with every game we play. This win will be massive in terms of the group’s confidence and that will help going forward.

“I think we needed the victory after the Belgium game because you then trust what you’ve been doing and it gives you momentum.

"It’s also important that we got the fans behind us and that they start to believe in us as well. We want to get everyone onside as a nation again.”

Scotland had lost their previous three games going into last night's game against Albania but for McGregor the most important match was always going to be the competitive one.

“We’d lost three games in a row but you saw the quality of the opposition we were up against – all three were at the World Cup finals this summer," he said. "You want to test yourself and you understand what level we’re at and what we’re trying to build.

“But we delivered when it mattered tonight and now we’ve got off to the good start which was what we’d wanted to do.”

Having dominated proceedings in the opening half without getting the goal they needed, there was a suspicion that it might have been one of those nights for Scotland.

“We were still positive at half-time," maintained McGregor. "We were having success in getting up the pitch and creating a few chances so it was all about keeping believing in the game plan and that we would eventually get the goals.

“Fortunately for us, we scored early on after the break and then got another to put the game to bed. It was good to win our first competitive game.”

And former Celtic midfielder Stuart Armstrong's creativity and directness made a difference too when he was introduced at the interval.

“You know what Stu gives you with his energy and the way he drives forward and runs behind people," said McGregor. "I thought he made a big difference when he came on.”

And Hoops midfielder McGregor also praised his namesake Allan for one save in the second period when the scoreline was still just 1-0.

“That’s why he’s a top ‘keeper," said McGregor. "He makes saves at crucial stages of the game and he kept us 1-0 up with that stop. We spoke on Friday about how important it was to start this Nations League campaign positively.

“Getting a win was what we were after and we were able to take some positives from Friday night’s defeat by Belgium into tonight’s game and that helped us to take all three points."