JAMES McArthur last night admitted the mounting pressure on Scotland manager Gordon Strachan has given the national team an added incentive to get a result against England in their Russia 2018 qualifier at Wembley on Friday night.
A large number of supporters called for Strachan to be sacked after a 1-1 draw with Lithuania at Hampden and a 3-0 defeat to Slovakia over in Trnava last month seriously damaged Scotland's hopes of reaching the next World Cup finals.
But McArthur, the Crystal Palace midfielder who played in both of those Group F matches, revealed the Scotland players are determined to ease the pressure on Strachan by getting a morale-boosting victory over Gareth Southgate’s side.
“We want to win it for the manager,” he said. “Everyone knows that the team and the manager are under pressure to perform here. We obviously want to do it for ourselves and we want to do it for the fans, but we really want to do it for the manager. We feel that we owe him a performance and a win.
“After the Slovakia game we thought that as players we had let him down. We let him down with the performances and obviously the results. So take everything else away, we just feel that we owe him a performance and a result.
“We want him to stay. He is great for the players, he wants us to play football, but at the end of the day it is us who are out there and us who need to perform. Managers are always going to get the brunt of the players not doing their job. As I said, we feel like we owe the manager a special performance and a special win. We want the manager to stay. The only way we can do that is to win games.”
McArthur, who is hoping to start against England despite Scott Brown coming out of international retirement, has won the majority of his 26 Scotland caps under Strachan and firmly believes he remains the best man to lead the country.
“He has been great with myself and all the other boys,” he said. “As a player you always want to play football. I have played under managers who play total football and I have played under managers who want to kick it in behind. You ask any player at all and they will all tell you they want to get it down and play.
“The manager is doing that here. He is bringing a belief to everyone that we can win football matches. But, as I said, it is about us producing performances for him and the nation.
“I am enjoying my football right now and obviously you take confidence from getting called up here, learning different things from the manager here and he has helped my career.”
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