Scotland assistant manager Mark McGhee believes only a win against Republic of Ireland on Friday night will prove the current side mean business in its attempts to qualify for Euro 2016.
Victory for Gordon Strachan’s men would put them level on points with a side which drew 1-1 against world champions Germany in their last outing and has already beaten Georgia and Gibraltar.
McGhee believes the four points Scotland have earned after a home victory against the Georgians and a 2-2 draw away to Poland, have matched the expectations of the Tartan Army.
Defeat would put Scotland six points behind Martin O’Neill’s side but the former Aberdeen player and manager has challenged the squad to prove how far the national team has come since Strachan succeeded Craig Levein last year.
McGhee said: “In terms of our ambitions for qualifying, it’s huge.
“This game will go a long way to deciding whether we do or don’t.
“There’s been a lot of quite positive feedback from performances and recent results, but the fact is, all we’ve achieved so far is the minimum the supporters would have been expecting of us.
“We’ve beaten Georgia at home, and we got a point away from Poland. I think after us beating Poland over there last year, people hoped we would get a point at least. That’s all we’ve got.
“Ireland have got a point more than maybe people would have expected, and they’ve beaten Georgia away from home which is still going to be a big ask for any of us. So I think we’ve still got it all to prove.
“If we can get a positive result we can start to believe we are on the up because all we’ve done is achieve the minimum so far.”
McGhee believes consistency of selection and playing style has been a major factor in results improving under Strachan. He added: “A style had to emerge, we had to have a consistent way of playing. We had to work on the same things and not chop and change. We had to find a way of playing that suits the players we have and the players have to know what’s expected of them.
“To some degree we’ve managed that. When we play Ireland, everyone will expect to see us playing a certain way. Some days we’ll play better than others but we are playing consistently in a style that suits the players we have.”
McGhee is bracing himself for a British-style cup tie between two sides he believes are a “mirror image” of each other.
“I think there will be a slightly different tone to it than there would be against a more continental team, whether it is Poland or any of the others.
“We have players from the Premier League and the Championship and a few from Scotland.
“They pretty much draw their players from the same clubs.”