‘Scots can cope with pressure’

S C OT L A N D a s s i s t a n t manager Mark McGhee is adamant Gordon Strachan and the players can handle the pressure of their mustwin World Cup qualifier.

Strachan and McGhee know Scotland’s hopes of making t he World Cup finals rest on beating Slovenia at Hampden on Sunday.

The visitors are f our points ahead of Scotland in second place in Group F following four out of 10 matches.

And McGhee admits Sunday night’s contest is “do or die”.

“As far as qualification, I think it is, I think we have to win,” the former Motherwell and Aberdeen manager said.

“I think all the games will be like that now, if we win on Sunday then we’ll go into the England game and you’ll ask me the same question. We know that, we can live with that.

“I think we have big players in there who can handle that sort of pressure, certainly the manager can handle that sort of pressure. We look forward to the game.”

Scotland drew with Lithuania in their only home match of the campaign so far and have since suffered 3-0 defeats in both Slovakia and England.

But McGhee said: “We don’t suffer when we’ve done well, thinking that it counts in the next game. We know we have to take one game at a time, and it’s the same with a bad result. We have a bad result, we move on and we are ready for the next game, and that’s the way it is.”

Scotland assistant boss Mark McGhee.