For the rampant hosts it was a Fab Four and the scoring spree left Scotland's long-suffering supporters in something of a Norwegian mood.

Apologies to Lennon and McCartney for that opening gambit, but cast your mind back to August 2009, when the ailing Scots were sliding down the hit parade. A 4-0 thumping to Norway in a World Cup qualifier hammered another nail into the coffin of the ill-fated George Burley regime.

Steven Whittaker remembers it well, of course. The 29-year-old came on for the last 12 minutes of that eye-watering onslaught in Oslo when all was lost and earned his first full international cap. "That was my debut and I actually came on at centre-half, believe it or not," recalled Whittaker with a shudder. "I think somebody got injured and I went on just to fill a hole. It was nice to make my debut, but it was not the circumstances you wanted, really."

Fast forward to the present day and the Scotland squad will return to Norway with a spring in their step and a feel-good factor seeping through the ranks. On this long and winding road of transition, Friday night's 0-0 draw with the USA may not have been the most rip-roaring affair but it kept the momentum building under Gordon Strachan and provided more positive pointers to take into tomorrow night's match in Molde.

"It's one of the most positive squads I've been in," noted Whittaker. "We've got a lot of young players that believe in themselves. The manager's positivity is flowing through the players. Individually, and as a squad, we need to believe in what we're doing to take the whole thing forward and we've done that in the last five or six games under Gordon. He is the most positive person and he's passed that on to us."

While Whittaker will make the trip across the North Sea for this week's latest instalment in the Scotland renaissance, Steven Fletcher and Charlie Mulgrew have both been granted leave from duty as Strachan looks to re-jig his line-up and keep things fresh. Ikechi Anya, Russell Martin and Craig Bryson were unused substitutes for the USA friendly and they are likely to be thrown into the fray tomorrow night.

"It can be quite difficult, because Gordon will probably want to look at some different people in different positions," added Whittaker. "It's hard to keep the fluency in the team when you change things like that, but whoever's picked will play for the jersey as always."