Saints midfielder Stuart Armstrong starred in Scotland's famous win over Israel and admitted: We always believed we could do it.

Armstrong helped his national side top their Uefa Nations League group with a dramatic 3-2 victory at Hampden Park on Tuesday night.

And he revealed that there were never any doubts in the Scottish camp about their ability.

Armstrong said: “There was always that belief in the camp that we could go on and achieve what we wanted to.

“There’s always going to be negativity in football when things aren’t going the way they are expected to, or people want them to.

“But as modern-day professionals, you just need to focus on your job at hand and not get bogged down with what’s happening on the periphery.”

Celtic’s James Forrester stole the show with a hat-trick to fire Scotland to victory, but Armstrong’s dominance in midfield didn’t go unnoticed.

The midfielder has struggled for game time since his £7m arrival from Celtic in the summer but was selected for Saints’ last game against Watford.

Mark Hughes used him further up the pitch and after a nervy opening, he settled down and showed some attacking intent.

Scotland were without key players Matt Ritchie, Robert Snodgrass, Tom Cairney and James McArthur for the game against Israel.

But that didn’t stop Alex McLeish’s side digging deep, especially when Israel’s Eran Zahavi reduced their lead to just one with 15 minutes to go.

Armstrong believes the side’s previous experiences allowed them to come together and see the game out.

He added: “It was a bit of a sloppy start from us, we weren’t very pleased with the first goal, but we showed character to get back into the game and James Forrest was excellent with his three goals.

“Our performance over in Albania was terrific and it set us up perfectly for this game, and I thought we came through it excellently.

“Even at the dying death, we managed to see it out and we were very pleased we managed to achieve that play-off spot.”