Whatever happens in Trnava tonight, Andy Robertson believes Scotland and Slovakia will remain in the thick of the battle for World Cup qualification.
But the former Dundee United defender does admit a win for the Scots would represent a major blow for one of their main Group F rivals.
If Scotland were left frustrated by their Hampden draw with Lithuania at the weekend, the fancied Slovakians were distraught over their defeat in Slovenia.
It left the second seeds without a point from the opening two rounds of fixtures.
And while Robertson does not accept a third defeat in a row would leave the Slovakians dead and buried, he knows it would leave them in a precarious position.
“I wouldn’t say we can kill them off because there is still such a long way to go in the group,” said the Hull City full-back.
“But if they’ve got zero points or even only one point from their first three games, it probably will be tough for them going into the rest of the campaign.
“And we’re certainly in a better position than them right now.
“We’ve got four points and are sitting second. We would argue that it should be six and we might even be top of the group but we are where we are and we’ll take that just now.”
Robertson admits there was a feeling of frustration in the camp after Saturday’s draw with Lithuania at Hampden.
But he believes a win is on the cards tonight and that would leave Scotland in a good position.
“If it’s seven points after this one it will be a good return.
“We probably would have taken four points from these two games this week but we are still a bit annoyed we didn’t get all three against Lithuania.
“The boys were frustrated at the end on Saturday but, with 10 minutes to go, we would have taken a draw.
“Once Lithuania went ahead, they got 11 men behind the ball — and rightly so, they are one-nil up at Hampden and they are going to try to hang on for the three points.
“In the end we managed to get a point and big Grant (Hanley) had a chance near the end, so we might even have won.
“If that goes in, we are talking about how well we’ve come back to win. And on another night if we take our chances we win it quite comfortably — but we move on.
“At the end of the group we might look back and say we battled hard, got the draw and it was a big point for us.”
Despite that sense of what might have been, Robertson insists he and his team-mates will be able to take plenty of positives from the weekend and, hopefully, use that to good effect tonight.
“Scoring so late on does pump you up and the boys are staying positive.
“You have to be like that when there is such a quick turn-around between games, and now all we’re thinking about is Slovakia.
“They will be trying to lift themselves and put right their bad start to the group.
“That makes it an interesting game and whoever performs best will get the result.”
And Robertson’s aim is to reproduce the form that earned him the Man-of-the-Match award on Saturday.
Not only would that help the team, with stiff competition from Celtic’s Kieran Tierney and Lee Wallace of Rangers for the left-back slot in the national team, he knows he has to keep performing.
“Lee and Kieran have done well in training but I think I have as well and I thank the gaffer for sticking by me.
“He probably could have changed it but he didn’t and, hopefully, he was happy with my performance.”
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