IT is, to borrow a phrase first coined by Sir Alex Ferguson, squeaky bum time. There is no margin for error. A draw, never mind a defeat, will be catastrophic. Nothing less than two outright victories will suffice.

Yet, for Gordon Strachan, whose Scotland side must beat Slovakia at home and then Slovenia away to land a Russia 2018 play-off spot, the prospect of being involved in two massive fixtures is, even with his future as manager of the national team hinging on success, an enticing one.

He is confident his group of players will be feeling every bit as enthused as he is and will rise to the occasion in both their meeting with the second-placed side in Group F at Hampden on Thursday week and then the match against their third-placed rivals in Ljubljana three days later.

The 60-year-old certainly has no fears about his captain Scott Brown, who he worked with at Celtic as well as Scotland, being fazed by the enormity of the challenge or the huge pressure which is on him because he knows only too well that nothing affects him.

“Scott has no reaction to whatever you say to him,” he said. “I remember speaking to Garry Pendry (his assistant manager at Celtic) one day and saying: ‘I think we should get a doctor to see him’.

“He just kept staring at me! Doesn’t matter if you were calling him the best player in the world or the worst player in the world his expression would stay the same. It’s a bit off-putting at times.”

Strachan added: “I can really enjoy what’s coming up. It’s going to be just a fantastic, fantastic occasion. The excitement has started already. I have been in far worse positions and so have the squad. So excuse us if we are enjoying it at the moment.

“When I first set out, I said in my first interview what a fantastic thing it would be to make five million people happy. We’ve done it on many occasions. But we’ve also made quite a lot of them unhappy at times. It’s not for the want of trying.

“To be able to take them, the players, the staff and all the rest to a finals would be just fantastic. But we know how hard this is going to be. The two hurdles are very hard.”

Strachan declined to single out Brown as being instrumental to Scotland’s remarkable resurgence during this World Cup qualifying campaign even though the national team have won three, drawn one and lost just one of the five games they have played since he came out of international retirement.

“There’s a lot of people who have helped us change,” he said. “Stuart Armstrong, James Forrest, there’s a few. It would be unfair on the rest of the guys to speak only about Scott. A lot of people have made a difference to where we are now.”

However, the central midfielder’s leadership qualities have been evident in the wins over Slovenia, Lithuania and Malta and draw against England as well as off the park since he himself available for selection by his country once again last year.

“I haven’t seen that much of a difference in him to be honest,” said Strachan. “I see more professionalism off the park. He realises now he’s a role model to everyone being the captain of Celtic and Scotland. His overall professionalism is better.

“I keep going back to the training session we had before the England game. The fitness coach was having a heart attack. I wanted to see how fit some of them were and we did a running session and Broony asked me what I was doing. I told him he should know as he’d seen it many times at Celtic.

“He then joined in. He didn’t need to as he’d been told to rest. But when he did it others did it – (Robert) Snodgrass joined in, others joined. Before I knew it we had 22 running when it was only meant for eight. That was all down to the leadership of the captain and it’s a great thing.

“I see his maturity more off the pitch than on it. The boys love him, the coaching staff love him. That’s why nothing was made of him coming back with us. Nothing at all.

“He started off as a guy who could defend or attack. I remember he scored a great goal for Hibs against Celtic running past people. He’s figured out what he’s good at and other coaches have helped him and he’s taken it on board. Through the years he’s picked up information, kept it in his head and got better.”

Strachan is confident that Brown and his team mates will be able to deal with the huge expectation on them and win their penultimate Russia 2018 qualifier against Slovakia next week if they perform like they did in their huge Euro 2016 match against Poland two years ago.

“The pressure has been on us before,” he said. “We played Poland here on the night the Republic of Ireland got their result against Germany. We scored two terrific goals and should have won the game. It was all down to lack of concentration at a free-kick.

“But we dealt with the pressure brilliantly. In a game where we had to perform we did perform. The late goal was desperately bad luck. The way we went about the game, the goals we scored, the enthusiasm and energy we had, that’s what I’m looking for against Slovakia.”