Barry Bannan has a message for the gloom and doom brigade who think Scotland will fail to qualify for the World Cup.
It is that the players won’t be listening to them.
When football’s greatest tournament kicks off at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow on June 14, 2018 it will be two decades and four days since the Scots were at the centre of the world as they opened France 98 against Brazil.
Having failed to qualify for all the World Cups and European Championships since then, it is perhaps unsurprising that there is a fair amount of scepticism surrounding the country’s chances of making it to Russia.
However, that scepticism won’t seep into the squad as they prepare to face Lithuania in the second of their Group F qualifiers at Hampden tomorrow night.
Indeed, midfielder Barry Bannan insists the players aren’t even prepared to hear what the doom-mongers have to say.
The 26-year-old Sheffield Wednesday man insisted: “You try not to listen to them.
“It is what we think that is important.
“It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks.
“We speak between ourselves and we are confident of doing something really good in this group.
“We can definitely do it.
“We have a lot of experience in that dressing room, guys who have played three or four campaigns.
“There is a mix of experience and young boys coming through. It’s a good mix for this campaign.”
Bannan claimed there will also be an absence of anxiety going into what many people are seeing as a must-win match at home to the Lithuanians.
Despite the 5-1 victory in Malta in the opening group game, there is still a feeling that any dropped points will prove difficult to make up as the campaign gathers pace.
Bannan said: “I have never been the anxious type.
“I am the complete opposite.
“I look forward to going into these types of games, getting out there and playing.
“But people deal with things in different ways.
“What we have to do as a squad is concentrate on the positives from the last game in Malta and I think we are quietly confident we have enough in the squad to win the game on Saturday.
“I don’t know if people are running out of patience with us because we didn’t qualify for the Euros.
“All we can concentrate on is ourselves, not all the other nations who made it there while we didn’t.
“There were a lot of positives to take from that campaign.
“We were probably one result away from being in the play-offs.
“When people see all the other teams going they do expect us to qualify too.
“They feel we should be there if the rest of them are there but all we can do is try to reach the next one.”
That failed Euros campaign saw Bannan experience the lowest point of his Scotland career, as he sat kicking his heels as an unstripped player in the Aviva Stadium in Dublin on June 13, 2015, watching from the stand as Gordon Strachan’s men drew 1-1 with the Republic of Ireland.
Now he feels more of an integral part of the set-up.
He recalled: “The time in Dublin was probably the hardest one for me to take in my Scotland career.
“It was me and Johnny Russell who missed out.
“You train all week and go over there and end up not stripped.
“If you are down and the boys see that then it can have an effect on them as well.
“So I basically turned into a supporter for that game.
“You are down at the time but you get time to go away and think about it.
“It makes you try harder, if anything.
“With this squad it could be anyone at any time in that position.
“There are a lot of players fighting for the same positions.
“I guess that is what I mean when I say my Scotland career has been full of ups and downs.
“I have had a lot of downs so I have learned how to deal with them.
“That’s why, when you come away for 10 days with Scotland, you have to put everything into training because it can be the little things that give you the edge over other people.
“I have learned that over my time.
“I think I have a part to play in this campaign.”
If the Republic match was the low point then Scotland’s last game in Malta provided Bannan with his highlight.
It even trumped his debut for his country in a 3-0 friendly win against the Faore Islands at Pittodrie in November 2010.
He added: “I think my debut was special but that was only a friendly so the Malta game was more important as it was a qualifier.
“For me to start was a big confidence boost and I would also say that was one of my best performances for Scotland.”
