Angus Gunn is vying for his Scotland debut after his first squad call-upVenue: Hampden Park, Glasgow Date: Saturday, 25 March Kick-off: 14:00 GMTCoverage: Live commentary on BBC Radio Scotland, live text on the BBC Sport website & app, highlights on BBC One Scotland

Scotland captain Andy Robertson says visitors Cyprus will be no pushovers as the "toughest group in the whole of the Euro qualifiers" starts on Saturday.

Ex-Newcastle United midfielder Temuri Ketsbaia's team are bottom seeds.

But Robertson points out the Scots had two narrow 2-1 wins over Cyprus in the last Euro qualifying campaign.

"It shows you how tough this group is - the two games we had against Cyprus in the last campaign were extremely tough," he said.

"International football as a whole has improved massively, I don't think there's any easy games and I'm sure Cyprus will be coming here tomorrow to prove that," the Liverpool left-back said.

It is the first campaign Robertson has experienced where Scotland have been seeded second in their group.

"I'm not sure we've got the benefit from it," he said. "We certainly got the toughest pot three and pot four - and five in Cyprus as well.

"It is the toughest group in the whole of the Euro qualifiers. But we look forward to the challenge."

Scotland are guaranteed a play-off place after topping their Nations League group, but Robertson is targeting at least a repeat of the second spot achieved in the last World Cup qualifying campaign to directly qualify, given the "play-offs can go either way".

Despite losing their World Cup play-off to Ukraine, he said the last campaign was "extremely positive" and looked forward to continuing the "improvement" now that head coach Steve Clarke had extended his contract.

Team news

Clarke, who lost centre-back Jack Hendry from his original squad, has reported no fresh injury issues. But he faces a dilemma in goal, with three uncapped players looking to take over from absent veteran Craig Gordon.

Gordon's Hearts team-mate, Zander Clark, Motherwell's Liam Kelly and Norwich City's Angus Gunn, who has switched allegiance from England, are pushing for a debut.

"The three boys have worked unbelievable this week," Clarke said. "They have looked at the situation and are pushing each other non-stop and are all trying to impress.

"It is a decision I am close to making, but I haven't made it and I have a couple of decisions on the outfield players that I'm going to have to make overnight."

Blackburn Rovers' Dominic Hyam, who was called up to replace Hendry, is another potential debutant, while Celtic midfielder Callum McGregor is poised to win his 50th cap.

Oostende defensive midfielder Fanos Katelaris is the only notable absentee from the Cyprus squad that won in Israel in their last friendly outing in November.

Sanfrecce Hiroshima striker Pieros Sotiriou, who would have been their top scorer with 12 goals if included, misses out again, but St Mirren midfielder Alex Gogic and Apoel's former Dundee winger, Georgios Efrem, are included.

What they said

Scotland head coach Steve Clarke: "Cyprus are a good team. I worked with Temuri at Newcastle and his teams are always good and well organised.

"They had a good result in their last friendly game - they went to Israel and won 3-2 and we know how difficult it is there. They will be tough opponents, but we have to win the game. When you play the lesser seeded teams, you want to win those games."

Cyprus head coach Temuri Ketsbaia: "We know we will not be favourites in any game we play in our group, but that will give us more motivation to prove people wrong and we have to have that in our mind.

"I don't think they will underestimate us. They are not in a position to think this is a sure three points and we want to go out tomorrow and show we can play good football and get the result.

"We know it will be difficult. Some of our players haven't seen 50,000 fans in the stands, but it is good for our players to see a full stadium."

Cyprus boss Temuri Ketsbaia spent a season at Dundee

Cyprus midfielder Alex Gogic: "Temuri Ketsbaia has a winning mentality, is a good leader and hopefully we can do a good job for him in the qualifiers.

"We have the ability, but we can get better results than we have done previously. Scotland have been doing well, so it won't be an easy game."

What do we know about Cyprus?

Uefa Cyprus correspondent John Leonidou

What you see with just about every away performance by Cyprus is they will be very rigid, very defensive, very cagey - they'll try as much as they can to shut up shop.

They won in Israel last time out, but while they have shown they can get the odd decent result, they have never been good travellers.

Their main thing will be not to concede early as the heads have a tendency to drop if they do. Ketsbaia also knows they have to do better at holding on to the ball.

They should be doing better given the fact they managed to put a local team into the quarter-finals of the Champions League and have consistently put teams into the group stages of the Europa League and Conference League.

From a club point of view, they are always punching above their weight and have had some decent victories over bigger opponents.

Ketsbaia is a legend for taking Anorthosis Famagusta into the Champions League group stages, although I don't think he has the spark as manager as he used to have.

Konstantinos Laifis is playing at a pretty good level in Belgium with Standard Liege - he was missing in recent games and it showed - while fellow centre-half Valentin Roberge, of Apollon Limassol, is kicking on a bit at 35, but also brings experience.

There is a threat up front from Marinos Tzionis, who plays for Sporting Kansas City, and has kicked on a bit and Loizos Loizou, who is a young player coming through and did well for Omonia recently against Manchester United, while midfielder Grigoris Kastanos is playing at a good level in Italy with Salernitana.

Match stats

Scotland have won all seven of their previous matches against Cyprus, beating them most recently in a European Championships qualifier in November 2019.Cyprus' three away matches against Scotland have all been qualifying games for major tournaments, losing in two World Cup qualifiers (1969 and 1989) and a Euros qualifier (2019).Scotland have lost their opening European Championship qualifier in their last two campaigns, beaten by Germany in 2014 and Kazakhstan in 2019. The last time their first game was on home soil, however, they beat Faroe Islands 6-0 in 2006.Cyprus have played an away qualifying game for a major tournament on British soil on nine previous occasions and lost all nine games by an aggregate score of 32-4, losing at least once against each of the four British nations.Scotland have lost just one of their last 16 home games in all competitions (W11 D4), losing 3-1 to Ukraine in June 2022 in a World Cup qualifying play-off game.Cyprus have won their opening game in each of their last two European Championship qualifying campaigns, beating Bosnia in 2014 and San Marino in 2019. They last suffered defeat in their opening game in 2006 - beaten 6-1 by Slovakia.Callum McGregor could make his 50th appearance in this game. The last six players to reach 50 games have ended on the winning side in their 50th game, while the last Scottish player to score in his 50th game was John Collins at the 1998 World Cup against Brazil.John McGinn has scored 15 goals under Steve Clarke for Scotland - only Denis Law under Ian McColl (21) has scored more goals under a single manager in Scotland's history.