Palace midfielder desperate to upset England in World Cup clash

James McArthur has piled all the pressure on England on Saturday afternoon, describing them as heavy favourites to beat his Scotland side at Hampden Park.

The Crystal Palace midfielder is a key member of Gordon Strachan’s squad but he knows they are up against it in a crucial World Cup qualifier.

England have not lost to Scotland in a competitive fixture since 1999, but victory could reinvigorate their qualifying campaign as they sit six points off the group leaders.

“When you get tense and are under pressure, you either tighten up or relax and look forward to the occasion,” said McArthur.

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“Players are trying to give the manager a decision to make about them playing or being ready to come on in the match, but we are all relaxed and looking forward to it.

“Everyone is expecting England to win but we will be putting pressure on ourselves to put on a good performance and get a great result so we create history. We played England a few months ago at Wembley and the boys were excellent that night. We lost 3-0 but took a lot of positives from it.

“We put them under a lot of pressure up to 2-0 but when they got the third, the game was dead. However, we had chances that night and had we taken any of them, it would have been a different story. There were also things that went wrong for us that night and we need to make them right.

“If we win, it will be all change in the group. A lot of people were saying before the Slovenia game that we were out of it. That was people looking in from the outside but we still believed.

“We were determined to do everything we could to make sure we were still in with a chance of qualifying. Getting the late goal to beat Slovenia (a 1-0 win on March 26) changed everything, and beating England changes everything again.”