STEVE Clarke will stress to his Scotland players the danger of writing off Group F minnows the Faroe Islands and Moldova - due to the country’s poor track record against smaller football nations.

Clarke’s side will have to beat Denmark, Austria and Israel at home and pick up points against those teams away to top or finish second in their Qatar 2022 qualifying section.

However, the national manager is also wary of the threat posed by the bottom two teams and will warn his charges to guard against complacency when those games come around.

“When you look historically at Scotland’s qualifying campaign it is normally one of the so-called smaller nations that trips us up,” he said.

“I don’t think we will be found wanting on that one. We know that when you go away from home against these smaller nations it will be difficult.

“I can remember watching a Scotland game against the Faroe Islands and they were 2-0 up (in a Euro 2004 qualifier in Toftir in 2002). I was thinking: ‘This can’t happen!’ But it is football and it can happen. We have to be on our guard and treat everybody with the same respect.”

Clarke added: “It could have been a tougher draw, but it is obviously a dangerous draw. The Danes and the Austrians have had a really good record recently and are in pot one and two for a reason.

“It means they have been consistently better than us over the past few years so we have to be careful of them.

“The Israelis we know everything about. We know they are a dangerous team as well. They actually beat us the last game we played. Without being disrespectful to the two minnows in the group, we have to be happy with the draw, but very, very wary that it can be a dangerous draw as well.”