Sebastien Pocognoli believes it is only a matter of time until John McGinn becomes Scotland’s all-time top goalscorer.

The Scotland manager saw McGinn score a match-winning double to help Scotland secure a scratchy and often uninspired win over North Macedonia. It handed Pocognoli his first Hampden victory at the third attempt and brought some relief for the Belgian.

It hadn’t looked good when North Macedonia equalised almost immediately after McGinn had put Scotland ahead after 54 minutes. The header from Elmin Rastoder was the visitors' first goal in nine games.

A penalty from McGinn following a VAR check with 16 minutes left, after goalkeeper Stole Dimitrievski clumsily tripped Ben Gannon-Doak, secured the three points for Scotland and kept their hopes of finishing second in their Nations League group alive. Slovenia drew 0-0 with group winners Switzerland.

Pocognoli’s side must win against Switzerland in St Gallen on Monday and hope Macedonia take something from their clash at home against the Slovenians.

With McGinn in the side, anything is possible against Switzerland. Pocognoli hailed the Aston Villa’s contribution and feels he will shortly overtake Kenny Dalglish and Denis Law in the rankings. Both legends scored 30 goals for Scotland and McGinn, who now sits third with Hughie Gallacher on 24 goals, is now just seven goals from overtaking the pair at the top. He has already scored three goals under Pocognoli, having struck a penalty in the 2-0 win against North Macedonia in Skopje last month.

“I'm more focused on the collective challenge and goals,” said Pocognoli. “And I believe if we can build something nice around the collective, then John will one day break the record. He has had a lot of chances through these five games together already. It's important but the individual record I always bring in the collective package. And I hope for him that he can reach it.”

Pocognoli, if not satisfied with all aspects of Scotland’s play, was happy to end the week “with a good feeling” and before travelling to face Switzerland.

He added: “It was not always perfect, but I know that what we worked in two days (this week) happened many times today on the pitch. That's for me very important. On top of that, we created a lot of chances that we really have to score and maybe have a better feeling after the game. But on the whole, I think we were quite aggressive.”

Billy Gilmour missed an open goal shortly after half-time while Dimitrievski pulled off a number of good saves.

“Off the ball, I think we were quite aggressive,” said Pocognoli, who handed a full debut to Stoke City’s Luke Graham in the centre of a three-man defence. “We recover a number of balls that we managed well in some moments of transition.

"We created a big chance for Billy [Gilmour] from this also. So that's a new approach of the game. I think we started the game not that intensely because we didn't manage the ball well. And then for sure you start the game with the feeling that we don't control the ball. After 10 minutes we started to reach Lewis [Ferguson] and Billy [Gilmour] through the lines. And then the game became what we expected.

‘We created chances, we isolated Ben [Gannon-Doak] in the one v one, and we had a lot of pressure. After the first goal I think we need to learn not to drop the intensity. Because after the first goal for 5 minutes I really feel like we dropped the intensity and the focus.

“And we had the same feeling after the second one. So, it's something that we need to fix.”

He agreed Scotland need to be more clinical. “Yes, probably,” he said, while perhaps recalling the missed chances against Slovenia in his first match in charge and which now seem so significant.

‘But I prefer to talk about creating a lot of chances,” he added. “And probably we should keep a clean sheet. So that's really the critical aspect and the demanding aspect. But it's part of the challenge and we are early in the challenge to try to fix this for the future.”