IKECHI ANYA has crunched the numbers and targeted a run Scotland haven’t delivered since qualifying for Euro 96.
The Derby midfielder admits there is no room for manoeuvre after the sorry 3-0 loss to England at Wembley on Friday night.
He has set his sights on full points from Scotland’s next four home games between March and October next year.
However, one of those matches, against Malta, is unlikely to count in the race for a play-off spot from Group F and throws even greater pressure on the squad when they travel to Lithuania on September 1.
Scotland have not won five competitive games in a row since Craig Brown led the squad to England for the European Championships 20 years ago.
If Scotland are to have any chance of finishing runners-up, most likely to Gareth Southgate’s squad, they may also have to win in Slovenia in their last group game in October.
A tough ask? Well, no Scotland team has won six matches in a row, even including friendlies, since 1937-38.
Anya said: “We are still looking at 2018. We are four points off second and have four home games coming up. We are looking to take maximum points from the matches at Hampden.
“We have England again in the summer which will be a great fixture and we are not looking any further than qualifying for the World Cup .
“We have to take 12 points from four games but that is international football and you must play with these pressures. That can bring out the best in you and hopefully it is going to help us.
“We are working hard. You make your own luck. It might have been different if we’d got that break at Wembley. We just have to try to make the fans proud.”
Anya, 28, had only that terrible trio of Scottish standards on which to reflect after another depressing night for the national game – ifs, buts and maybes.
Ultimately, clinical finishing from well-schooled English strikers did for a Scottish defence half a yard off the pace behind a frontline whose football brains don’t whirl at the same high speed as their rivals.
Anya added: “Everyone watched the game, it was never a 3-0 match by any stretch of the imagination. If we’d scored that one goal then it would have been a different game.
“We would have had them on the ropes. Instead, they weathered the storm, got a second and third, and we couldn’t come back from that.
“We did ourselves proud, especially that good spell in the second-half. James Forrest had a chance, Robert Snodgrass had a chance, but they put their bodies on the line at crucial stages and then managed to bounce back. Their resilience is probably England’s strength.
“The big difference is they took their chances and we didn’t.
“We try our best in every game and I just can’t take explain why it’s like this. Listen, games turn on certain instances and I look back to the Slovakia match when their first goal came from a foul on Steven Fletcher at the other end of the pitch.
“We lost our focus a bit, they went one in front and got their crowd behind them.
“Hopefully we can go into the next fixtures focusing on the positives – and we had some on Friday – and right the things we are doing wrongly.”
Anya was preferred at right-back to Callum Paterson – but it’s a role with which he was comfortable after playing there on several occasions with former club Watford.
He added: “The gaffer spoke about their threat on the wings and asked if I’d be happy to do a job there. I played there a few times last season and thought I did okay against some speed merchants.”