Nigel Quashie will finally be acquainted with the manager who tried to sign him for Rangers. Alex McLeish is a long-time admirer of Quashie's combative skills but his perilous position last year, coupled with Rangers' financial prudence, thwarted the manager's attempts to sign him from Southampton and a secondary loan inquiry made to West Bromwich Albion.

Quashie has since joined West Ham United but regards McLeish's interest as a healthy sign at the dawn of a new era for the national team. "He wanted to do something but things became a bit uncertain with speculation about Paul Le Guen," said Quashie. "I didn't want to be in a position where there wasn't 100% stability surrounding the club and the manager.

"I pick up the Scottish papers every day and I read how the lads are doing. The speculation was unbelievable and I didn't feel it was right to go to a club where I wasn't sure what was going on. You never take any manager's opinion of a player for granted; everybody in the group sticks together."

Scotland will play Georgia on Saturday and Italy next Wednesday in a Group B double-header that will shape their entire campaign, having unexpectedly climbed to the top of a group containing the World Cup finalists, France and Italy.

Quashie is among a list of players happy to escape their clubs' ills, having watched West Ham fans turn against their own players and heap pressure on their manager, Alan Curbishley, as the club tumble down the Premiership table towards the relegation zone.

"I've enjoyed my football and being back in London," he said with a broad Cockney accent. "It is a massive club and there has been a lot of things going on, new managers and other speculation about players, but that's always the way. Everybody wants to see their club doing well and you have to take the criticism with the praise sometimes and get on with things."

Like Manchester City, West Ham have endured taunts of "you're not fit to wear the shirt" from the terraces while long servants such as Christian Dailly have even been booed on to Upton Park.

"It's hard and we look at it as a team. Nobody likes to hear supporters saying things like that but people pay their money, football is expensive these days, and people have a right to their opinion," he said. "I just feel that if you can get behind the players, it is the biggest encouragement they could have. West Ham is a big club, people expect certain standards and if they aren't met, people get disappointed.

"When you have a break with the international team, sometimes you get a bit of freshness to take back to league football. I've come away to get results, the same as I would try to get results with West Ham. The spirit on and off the field with Scotland is top class. You always feel 100% involved and part of something moving in the right direction."

To that end, Quashie will confound an ankle infection that developed after sustaining a gash against Tottenham Hotspur. He has played through the discomfort and the swelling and has no intention of missing a vital phase of Scotland's campaign to reach their first major championships in a decade.

"If we get three points at the weekend and take something from Italy, then we know we're in a position to qualify for a major tournament again," he said, after modelling the new Scotland away kit at a Diadora fashion show in The Arches nightclub in Glasgow yesterday.

"We have set standards for ourselves and performed. When that happens, people put expectations on you. Confidence should be sky high the way that we are performing but the results have come through sheer hard work. I have never been more delighted to be part of a squad that was pulling in the right direction and wanting to go places.

"We have beaten France so we are full of confidence but we have to treat this game against Georgia the same way. I would not call it a banana skin, they are a good side. They play good football and work hard but if we play as we are capable of doing, we will win the game."