PETER Grant believes Alex McLeish's years at Rangers have helped him to cope with the noise and pressure of being Scotland manager.

The two of them worked together at Birmingham City, Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest before joining up for a fourth time for the national team and the one-time Celtic man insisted the former Rangers manager will handle any flack which will come his way - and already had.

"We've been around each other long enough," Grant said. "It's so important that at times you keep the noise away. I've been the same myself. If you listen to everything your head ends up all over the place.

"Human nature's like that but sometimes there has to be a reality check and it's good to sit down and talk about the football. We go over the game time and time again, sometimes probably too much. The biggest problem is that we're supporters as well and we're desperate for the country to do well. That's when it hurts a little more. You want the players to succeed and get the chance to qualify for something this early in their careers. It would live with them forever.

"Alex and I have had success and failure and we have an idea of how to deal with both. When you're successful you're preparing for it not going right so you don't really enjoy it.

"We have to manage both sides. He's big and ugly enough to look after himself. He's done Rangers and Scotland before and when you've done that the pressures are the same. The nation wants you to do well and when you don't do well the pressure comes with it."

Grant has never seen a glass as half empty and despite poor performances and results, the Scotland No 2 insisted there were many positives which can be taken into the double-header with Albania and Israel.

"Living in England for 20 years now, I am more patriotic than I have ever been because I hear everybody talking and I hear what they say and you get disappointed," Grant said. "But you are so passionate about your country and I think that is the one thing Alex has always been. It hurts him hard when there is criticism but he is a realist as well and he realises when we don't do well we deserve everything we get. So we have got to try and put it right. That is the beauty of the next game coming up. Everything else has gone by now, we will learn from it certainly and these young guys will have another experience.

"There was a lot of good stuff in the Albania game, there was a lot of good stuff in the Portugal game, Belgium even. So these experiences can be of benefit. We have to look at things and take away the negatives, to look for the positives instead. Say, well this player or that has done really well.

"Take Stephen O'Donnell, if he hadn't gone to Peru and Mexico he wouldn't have had the opportunity to play for the national team. But now he is in it. We have to look for balance but at the same time the bottom line is we are looking for victories. For me that is about making sure we are supporting Alex and giving the players the right information so we can get victories and everybody goes home happy. That is we are there for."