QUE sera, sera. Whatever will be, will be. The words have rarely seemed so appropriate as Gordon Strachan goes to Wembley for a match which will define both Scotland's hopes of reaching Russia in the summer of 2018 and quite possibly his own length of tenure and legacy as manager. Not for nothing is this one being sub-titled Strachan's last stand.

If things were weighing on the Scotland manager's mind, though, you would hardly have guessed it from the 59-year-old's bullish performance in his pre-match press conference yesterday. So assured did he seem that one wag suggested he must have been de-mob happy.

There was, quite simply, no beating about the bush on this one. This one is a "huge" game, swollen in significance both because of the importance of the three points which are up for grabs in the Group F table, and because something far more primal is at stake too. England versus Scotland, of course, is no ordinary football match. The fixture has an existence of its own and, with 14,000 travelling fans making the journey, copious amounts of national pride and history are on the line. For now, all questions about how one man's future might or might not be affected by it all were only of peripheral interest.

This will be no-ordinary football match so perhaps it is appropriate that Strachan feels the backdrop to this match might just inspire something equally extraordinary from Scotland. While much has changed, in both camps, since a debut goal from substitute Ricky Lambert, then of Brendan Rodgers' Liverpool, gave England a 3-2 friendly win here in August 2013, that performance is the template for what Scotland hope to achieve here tonight.

"It’s like any sport when you get the big occasions," said Strachan. "You can get world records when the adrenaline drives you to somewhere else. But obviously we’ve got a plan. We don’t just chuck everybody out, wish them all the best and say ‘go well’.

"But I’ve played in a Scotland-England game too where people have gone about booting people so the crowd think that’s great," he added. "That’s no good to anybody. You have to stick to the plan but use the emotion to run faster, jump higher, concentrate more, and be braver."

Wishful thinking or not, less is being read into the return 'friendly' at Celtic Park in November 2014, which finished 3-1 to England, just days after Scotland had overcome the Republic of Ireland. "The circumstances were different," said Strachan. "We were so drained. I think everybody was."

Scotland the brave is needed tonight if England, on a run of 32 straight unbeaten qualifiers, are to stumble in the first competitive meeting between these teams since Scotland's 1-0 win in 1999 but Strachan is pinning little hope on a pre-match pep talk from one of the nation's favourite sons. While Andy Murray, the newly-crowned World No 1, will be well received in the event he makes it through the London traffic from the o2 arena in time to take in the match, there are no guarantees and his duties ahead of the ATP Tour finals suggest a pre-match visit to the team hotel is of the question.

"If the big man can play up front and move about he can have a shot at that!" joked Strachan. "But team sport is a wee bit different. I wouldn’t expect someone like me to go in and give him a talk on how he should be playing tennis. I wouldn’t say, ‘I don’t think you should be doing that drop shot any longer Andy. ‘Or ‘I think you really need to work on your upper body because it looks a bit puny. I don’t think he would appreciate that because I know nothing about tennis. I’ve had these motivational speeches before and thought, ‘I’m ready, shut up, let’s get out.’"

To return to the nuts and bolts of this particular football match, what team Strachan entrusts his players with is a source of some fascination. Having found a new formula for his Scotland side after his summer spying mission at Euro 2016, the 59-year-old now ponders whether to go with the team which underwhelmed in October, or alter his plans for the Auld Enemy. Strachan says he had deliberated over "one or two" positions after watching them in training and said it was just about possible to read an opportunity for Oliver Burke, if not Leigh Griffiths, to start in place of Chris Martin up front.

"I see a new trend coming in in football where the main striker is stronger and quicker, that focal point," said Strachan. "You look at that and ask: 'have we got that?' Can we do that? If you don’t you go somewhere else and do what’s best for the team. It’s not like we're a Barcelona where we say that’s the way we play and we never change. If you’re fighting a heavyweight boxer you can’t just fight the same way as him, if he’s a big puncher you have to do something else.”

While there was a shrug of the shoulders about the Charlie Adam situation, Strachan said he had had been moved by the fact so many of his players had become de facto parts of the "Strachan household". He was proud of the fact that the likes of Steven Naismith, Robert Snodgrass and James McArthur had called for him to stay - regardless of tonight's result.

The 59-year-old was famously on his honeymoon in London in 1977 when he ventured onto the Wembley pitch to steal a sod of turf in celebration after Scotland's 2-1 win. Winning tonight would be an even greater conquest. "Aye, it’s somewhere in Broughty Ferry now," said Strachan. "Three points would be a lot better. And I’m sure they would appreciate me leaving the pitch alone as well."