Callum McGregor insists Scotland 's showdown with Austria is a "must not lose" - but not quite "must win".
A critical World Cup 2022 qualifying awaits both nations in Vienna on Tuesday with Steve Clarke's side sitting third in Group F behind Denmark and Israel.
A meeting with the latter in October follows the clash with the Austrians and McGregor knows Scotland must take something from both games.
But he believes victory at the Ernst-Happel-Stadion would be excellent but not necessarily imperative.
The Celtic midfielder said: "It's a big game, especially after the results the other night, with us getting a positive result and them getting a negative result. We're getting to the point where you're starting to run out of games so the next two or three are massive for us.
"You don't want to look too far ahead but the nature of qualification is that you try and earmark where you're going to get the points you need. If we can come away with four points from the next two games, we're doing well.
"The Austria game is a must-not-lose rather than a must-win. A win would be great because it puts us in the best possible position but, if you want to label it, it's probably must-not-lose."
Austria drew 2-2 at Hampden earlier this year and then reached the last 16 of Euro 2020 in the summer so McGregor is paying no attention to the suggestion that Franco Foda's side have suddenly become dysfunctional in the wake of their 5-2 defeat in Israel on Saturday.
He said: "In football you're only ever one game away from crisis and supposedly having to tear everything up and start again, but we know that's not the case with Austria. We've been to Israel and we know how difficult it is to go there.
"No doubt they'll be desperate to bounce back against us and show everybody that they're not in crisis and they're still a good team.
"We know they're a threat from the previous game we played against them and we'll need to produce a top performance to get a result against them.
"They're a very well-organised team. They don't usually ship that many goals. Results like that can happen in football. We have to try and take advantage of that as much as we can."
