ROBERT Snodgrass belatedly joined up with the Scotland squad last night after being given time off to attend the birth of his daughter.

The Norwich City midfielder arrived at the squad's Renfrewshire hotel four days late so he could be present when Leonie was born.

Snodgrass, who scored the winner when Scotland beat Croatia in Zagreb four months ago and is expected to start against the same opposition at Hampden tomorrow, paid tribute to manager Gordon Strachan for being so accommodating about the birth of his second child with partner Denise. "I managed to train last week and I think the adrenalin of fatherhood alone will get me through," he said. "I'm looking forward to seeing the boys and I would like to thank the manager for letting me get everything sorted with my family."

Scotland are fifth in Group A and could finish either in that position, fourth, or sixth, depending on how results go tomorrow. While they host Croatia, leaders Belgium are at home to fourth-placed Wales, while third-place Serbia take on bottom country Macedonia. Scotland have failed to win any of the four home qualifiers so far in this campaign.

"It is important we finish as high up the table as we can and really give the crowd something to cheer," said Snodgrass. "We don't want to finish without a home win and after the momentum we have built up it would be great to finish the campaign with another positive result. Gordon has made an impact and I think you can see the passion from the players to improve our position in the group. I would love nothing more than to finish on a high and get ready for an assault on the Euro Championship qualifying campaign.

"It will be a different type of game to the one in June. We went there with nobody giving us a chance. I think now we have proved we are a tougher proposition and showed a resilience to win in Macedonia."

Stevie Hammell was drafted into the squad over the weekend because of Lee Wallace's knee injury and there will be no further additions to the group.