Andy Robertson urges Scotland to build on ‘good start’ to World Cup campaign

Andy Robertson believes Scotland have got themselves in prime position for their “sprint” towards next summer’s World Cup finals.

The Scots kicked off their six-game qualification campaign by taking four points from away games against Denmark and Belarus last month.

With three of their four remaining matches at Hampden, including this month’s double-header against Greece and Belarus, captain Robertson has called on his side to build on their encouraging start by capitalising on home advantage.

“It’s a good start,” he said in and interview with the Scottish Football Association. “It is a bit of a sprint this time. It’s not a long campaign, it’s only six games.

“It’ll be over next month and you need to get yourself in position. I think we’ve done that well in September. Now we’ve got two home games and we have to try and make home advantage count.

“We have to be at our best to do that. At times we’ve not done that but I thought we got back to our best in September. I thought the lads were good and we got the results to match that. If we do the same this camp then I believe we’ll get the results we deserve again.”

Robertson is hoping the 3-1 aggregate defeat by Greece – including a chastening 3-0 home loss – in the Nations League play-off in March will focus Scottish minds ahead of Thursday’s rematch.

“The last time we faced Greece here was obviously a huge disappointment and obviously we’ve got to try and learn from that game and learn from the mistakes,” said the Liverpool left-back. “Obviously in a two-legged play-off coming back (from Athens) with a 1-0 victory away was as best as we could hope for really.

“The first-half performance, I thought we were excellent. The second half was a bit backs-to-the-wall and probably they deserved more out of the game, so we knew we then had to be better in the second game and unfortunately we weren’t.

“I think there were different factors to that but as long as we can put some of them right on Thursday then it will give us a much better chance. I believe in this squad massively, I believe in this team.

“Unfortunately sometimes you do have off-days and that was definitely one of them. We can’t afford to have another off-day on Thursday.”