STEVEN Naismith believes France deserve to be considered tournament favourites for the Euro 2016 finals after their resounding 3-0 victory over Scotland in the Stade Saint-Symphorien in Metz on Saturday evening.

Naismith, who came on midway through the second half, feared the national team were going to get annihilated when their hosts scored three goals – Olivier Giroud netted twice and Laurent Koscielny also headed in – during the first 45 minutes.

Didier Deschamps’ team, who won both Euro ’84 and France ’98 on home soil, are 3-1 with bookmakers to triumph in France in the coming weeks, ahead of Germany, Spain, England, Belgium and Italy.

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The Norwich City forward, who was the only visiting player to manage a shot at goal during the friendly at the weekend, fancies the host nation strongly to win the third major tournament in their history.

Glasgow Times: Scotland's Steven Naismith.

“They’ve got some squad,” he said. “Look at the second half. The players they brought on have been involved in Champions League finals and FA Cup finals.

"They are a quality squad. I would say they deserve to be favourites

“In terms of our own performance, we didn’t give all we’ve got. I think that showed. Our passing wasn’t the best and when we conceded the early goals you play right into an impossible task. It’s one of those, if you open up they’re going to carve you up and it could be a cricket score. It’s a lesson learned.

“I suppose we didn’t take two friendlies against teams we would have maybe beaten, but got nothing out of. There’s a lot that we can take from these games.”

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Scotland’s Russia 2018 qualifying campaign gets underway in September when Gordon Strachan’s side return to the Ta’ Qali Stadium where they lost 1-0 to Italy eight days ago to take on Malta. Naismith, who played in both friendly games, is confident the national can perform better than they did in their last two outings.

Glasgow Times: Charlie Mulgrew, left, Steven Naismith, centre, and Steven Fletcher, right, in Scotland training.

“If you look at each group you’re not going to face too many of these teams altogether,” he said. “But there will be some games and when it’s a competitive game it is different, no matter what.

"We’re not going to play them all the time. That’s the benchmark. If we can be slightly below their performance we won’t be far away. You have to be realistic.

“Also the squad had so many changes. Darren Fletcher and James McArthur have had to play two games in succession when that’s probably one area where we haven’t has as many comfortable experienced boys as we normally would. It’s a mixture of things we could do better, a change of personnel in the squad, a bit of a learning curve as well.”