Message to Scotland is loud and clear: Don't undo good work in Faroe Islands

Manager Steve Clarke is urging his Scotland players not to undo the good work of defeating Austria and Israel in the quest to reach the World Cup next year by slipping up in the Faroe Islands.

Steve Clarke takes a Scotland training session ahead of Tuesday's clash in Torshavn.

Clarke takes his team to Torshavn for tonight’s Group F encounter knowing that a win would take Scotland one step closer to securing a play-off berth for the finals in Qatar in November 2022.

The Scots sit second in the table on 14 points, seven behind runaway leaders Denmark but four clear of Israel and Austria with three matches remaining. A win against the Faroes and then three further points away in Moldova in next month would secure second spot with a game to spare, rendering a final-day clash with the Danes at Hampden largely redundant.

Saturday’s 3-2 triumph over Israel and last month’s 1-0 success in Vienna means Scotland are in control of their own destiny and Clarke hopes his team can solidify their own strong position against the islanders, who famously held Berti Vogts’ Scotland to a 2-2 draw on the North Atlantic archipelago in 2002.

"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,” said Clarke, who will be without Che Adams after the injured striker returned to Southampton. “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.”