STEVE CLARKE has urged his Scotland players not to let themselves down by blowing all their good work to this point with a slip-up in the Faroe Islands tonight.
The Scots have travelled to Torshavn with their World Cup destiny in their own hands after cementing their advantage in second place in Group F with the last-gasp win over Israel at Hampden on Saturday.
But Clarke says that his team’s efforts will count for nothing if they come away from the Tórsvøllur Stadium with anything but three points, a victory that would leave them needing a win over Moldova next month to secure a play-off spot.
“The thing that I’ve always tried to take from my career is that if you get one big result, there is no point in messing it up in the next game,” Clarke said.
“We spoke about that after Austria. The next one was Israel at home and it was ‘don’t waste the good work we’ve done in Austria’. So now we can add the Israel game to that. We left it late but thankfully we can add the Israel game to that.
“We can say ‘two great results, don’t let yourselves down by not getting the points you require in the upcoming game against the Faroes’.
“I’ve got to be the old guy that tries to calm everybody down and say ‘look, it’s just another step on the way to second position’. That’s all it is. Three points against Israel: all it did was keep us in second place. We’re in control of second place.
“When we come away from the game against the Faroes, we want to still be in control of second place. And hopefully have cemented second place. That’s the aim.”
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