Kenny McLean reckons Scotland have the quality to hurt Belgium.
The Norwich City midfielder pinpoints the threats posed by James Forrest and Ryan Fraser as capable of causing damage against the world’s number one-ranked side.
Much of the attention will inevitably be on Belgium’s Eden Hazard, following his big-money move to Real Madrid from Chelsea, and Scotland will expect to be under cosh for large periods of the game.
However, McLean believes Scotland can show a different side to their game.
He said: “We’ll need to show more character. Belgium are littered with world-class players.
“But we’ll show our compactness and we’ve got players at the top end of the pitch that can hurt anyone. Our two wide men are top-class players.
“We will need to be hard to beat but we need to have that threat going forward. Ryan is that type of player (£30 million) – his quality is there in abundance.
“The players they’ve got are world-class – they’re at the top of the tree.
“But we’ve got plenty of quality as well. We want to put ourselves against the best.
“We get these opportunities to play against world-class players and relish it.”
Belgium beat Kazakhstan 3-0 at home on Saturday and in a friendly against the Scots at Hampden last September ran out comfortable 4-0 winners. Hazard was on the scoresheet that night, along with Romelu Lukaku and a Michy Batshuayi brace.
McLean added: “The pressure will be on them, like it was on us on Saturday. Thankfully we delivered then and the pressure is now on then. But we feel we can get a result. It’ll be tough to stop Hazard but it’s something you’ve got to enjoy. We’ve got plenty of players that can hurt them. I don’t fancy a man-marking job on him.
“We’re privileged to be in this position and we need to leave it all on the pitch. We did it on Saturday night – they made it tough for us but we got the result we needed.”
