Scotland defender Steven Whittaker admits that patience could well be key as the squad plots the downfall of Group D minnows Gibraltar on Sunday.
When the players met up at Mar Hall on Monday, they faced a double header against Northern Ireland and Gibraltar although victory in the latter was always going to be the main focus of preparations.
As it happened, the Scots managed a morale-boosting win on Wednesday night to warm up for Sunday’s big Euro 2016 qualifier, and Whittaker reckons that has set Scotland up nicely for the weekend’s test.
“We started prepping for Sunday as soon as we met up in training on Monday, so we’ll recover from the Northern Ireland game and crack on with the rest of the preparation,” he explained.
“It’s difficult playing a team like Gibraltar because you don’t really know what it’s going to be like until you are on the pitch.
“We’re hoping for an early goal and hopefully we’ll be able to try and add to it, so I’m sure the tempo will be a lot better than what it was on Wednesday night.
“If we don ‘t get an early goal then patience is important, but hopefully it’s just a matter of time and we can get a few.
“It’s hard to put a number on how many goals you are going score.
“Obviously we want to score as many as we can and an early goal would be ideal.
“Patience might be a virtue and it could be a case of us prodding away if we don’t get an early one, but I’m sure the chances will come along.”
Given Gibraltar’s scorelines so far in Euro 2016 qualifying, Whittaker would not be surprised to see Sunday’s visitors get as many players behind the ball as possible.
But while the former Rangers full back is unlikely to be busy in a defensive sense, he has stressed the importance of Scotland biding their time as they go gunning for goals.
“We’ve got to prepare to try and break them down,” he commented.
“The manager has been tinkering with a little bit of change of formation and how we’re going to drag them around and create chances.
“We’ve watched them on videos and we can see how deep they are and how many men they get behind the ball, so we need to move the ball quickly and prepare for that in training.
“We need to stretch them and with so many people back there we need to try and play with a lot of width.
“We’ve got to stretch them along the backline and try to look for any gaps.
“We’ve got a really good choice of wingers, strikers and players who can play in the hole.
“We’ve got good quality up there, so I’m fully confident we can get a result on Sunday.”
One man Scotland could well pin their hopes on is Steven Fletcher, who hasn’t netted for his country for around six years now.
However, Whittaker has tipped the Sunderland forward to add to his tally after an encouraging enough performance against Northern Ireland on Wednesday.
“He works so hard when he’s up there on his own, and we struggled to get a lot of players around about him,” he added.
“But we still managed to create a few chances, especially first half, and we just couldn’t quite take them.
“If he keeps working hard we know he’s got the qualities to score, and if we can get players around about him then one will drop to him soon enough.”