SCOTLAND have a chance of beating England at Hampden tomorrow. I genuinely believe that. But they will have to play out of their skins to beat an English side people either underestimate or think won’t be up for it.

This is a very strong England team. I’ve had discussions with friends who don’t agree. They point to their poor record in tournaments as a sign that this is a group who can’t cut it at the highest level. My counter-argument is to look at their qualification record. Not one defeat since 2009. That’s incredibly consistent. They’re a very well-polished machine when it comes to qualifying games and that won’t likely change at Hampden.

You only have to look through their squad to see the calibre within their ranks. Guys like Harry Kane and Dele Alli have had brilliant seasons with Spurs, and there are other dangerous attacking players like Marcus Rashford, Adam Lallana and Raheem Sterling that Gareth Southgate can call on.

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And if Kane doesn’t fire on all cylinders for whatever reason, Southgate can look to his bench and bring on Jermain Defoe! So trying to contain all of those players is going to be a hugely difficult task for the Scotland defence. There is so much pace in their forward line.

As for the argument that these England players won’t fancy it, I’m not having that either. Yes, playing an international game in June is far from ideal for guys who’ve already endured long seasons but it’s a World Cup game against their oldest enemies in front of 50,000 fans and England are on the brink of qualifying. I think they’ll be hugely motivated for this one. I can’t see them taking their eye off the ball at all.

So, England will start as strong favourites but I think if several factors go in Scotland’s favour they could pull off an upset. The crowd need to do their bit. I don’t think the noise will necessarily intimidate England but it could give our side a massive lift. They are going to need that backing to continue throughout the 90 minutes if they are to get the victory.

And I think we do need to win. I saw Gordon Strachan said it was a game we couldn’t lose but I think realistically if we are to have any chance of making the play-off spot then we need the three points. We are running out of games and it’s got to the point where every one of them falls into the “must-win” category.

I thought there were a lot of encouraging signs in the last game against Slovenia and I’d start with near enough the same side. The one change I might make if I were Strachan would be to deploy Ryan Fraser wide right ahead of James Forrest.

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I think Fraser might have played against Slovenia had he not picked up an injury and a derby against England is some way to make your Scotland debut. But he’s been impressive for Bournemouth this season and, importantly, he’s been up against the same defenders he will face tomorrow. We don’t have a lot of players operating at that level these days so that experience might come in handy. Forrest didn’t play much for Celtic towards the end of the season because of the form of Patrick Roberts so I wonder whether the manager might consider throwing Fraser in instead.

It’s encouraging to hear Strachan talk of how upbeat everyone has been at training this week. It sounds like the players are buzzing and that there is a really good vibe in the camp. So if they can take that attitude into the game then it might give them a chance.

They won’t be hugely deterred by the memory of the game at Wembley in November. Scotland did well, managed to create opportunities and restricted England to just a few of their own. The difference was, however, that they were clinical every time while we were wasteful. That’s a major thing at international level.

We don’t have a lot of goals in our side so we have to hope that Leigh Griffiths is at the top of his game and puts away any chances that come his way. He was maybe unlucky against Slovenia once or twice but what better stage to score your first goal for your country than at home to England. We don’t want to leave this game harbouring more regrets about what might have been.

So, we have to go into the game with a positive mindset. The team needs to take heart from their last performance against Slovenia, we need to use Hampden and the fans to get the whole place jumping, and hope we can somehow sneak a goal or two and keep the door shut at the other end. It’s a difficult mission but not in an impossible one.