Can John McGinn find his best form for Scotland in Skopje?

John McGinn, who has scored 21 goals in 91 Scotland appearances, faces scrutiny over his recent international form ahead of Saturday night's match at the Todor Proeski Stadium in Skopje. After that game he will win his 92nd cap and move to third on Scotland's all-time appearance list.

Supporters in Skopje have displayed fervent admiration for McGinn, a devotion the piece compares with local reverence for Mother Teresa, and criticism of him can be met with strong rebukes. Andy Robertson will reach his 100th cap this weekend while McGinn currently sits fifth on Scotland's all-time scoring chart, one behind Lawrie Reilly. On his own form McGinn said: "The nature of the beast is, at club and country, you have a lot of responsibility, a lot of weight on your shoulders. When you do something well, you're the best thing since sliced bread. When you don't have a great couple of games, or you're not producing assists, or you make a poor pass in a pivotal moment of the game, you're automatically not good enough. "It's the nature of being my age (he'll be 32 later in the month). It's the nature of competing with Scotland and with Aston Villa. I take the praise with a big smile. Any criticism that comes, it's just part of it."

The article argues McGinn's influence for Scotland has diminished from previous peaks: his work-rate and pride remain, but decisive, game-defining contributions have been scarce. The piece singles out Haiti — and the double deflection — as a notable recent moment, and notes his last Scotland goal before the Haiti strike was approaching two years earlier. It also records that McGinn scored Scotland's only goal at the World Cup.

Asked whether he felt untouchable in the squad, McGinn rejected the idea. "No, no. I'm certainly not undroppable," he replied. "I remember Steve Clarke put me on the bench and I had absolutely no issue with that. "I don't think anyone in the squad is undroppable. It's the challenge to anyone coming into the squad and I encourage that challenge. "The competition is always there, whether that's someone who's 20, 21 or in their 30s. The best players will play for Scotland. If the manager said to me, 'You're on the bench, I need you for five minutes, ten minutes, zero minutes or 90-plus', we're here to represent Scotland. "The thing that's made us so successful over the years is that it doesn't matter if you play for Aston Villa, Motherwell, Hibs, St Mirren, anyone. You represent Scotland and at the end of the day the best team will take to the pitch. "If that's a team without me in it, I'll be the biggest Scotland supporter on the bench."

At club level the article sets out why McGinn is regarded as a Villa great, citing his history with St Mirren and Hibs but saying "at Villa something extra-special has happened." It lists achievements attributed to him: getting the club out of the Championship in 2019, keeping them in the Premier League in 2020, dragging them from 17th to 11th to 14th to 7th to 4th in the English top flight, helping bring Champions League football, captaining them and scoring for them when winning a European trophy last season, breaking their European goalscoring record, and remaining at the club while several high-profile teammates left.

Supporters and observers provide effusive assessments in the piece: one fan listed qualities such as "Humility", "determination", "tenacity", "leadership", "longevity", "success", while another wrote, "He's unquestionably ahead of any other player we've had this century and surpasses some of the legends from the last one, too." One admirer said they expected to tell their infant son in later life, "What was it like watching John McGinn?"

McGinn described how he handles praise and criticism. "If I was younger, I would have been straight on Instagram or straight on Twitter," he added. "Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but at the end of the day, you keep your head down, you keep working hard. "If you go through a barren spell or you go through a spell where you're not doing too well, you need to find that inner self-belief, which I feel like I have. The older you get, you learn how to manage tough moments better. They get worse, though. "The lows get lower and the highs become less high. But you certainly deal with it a lot better when you're older. When you're younger, it completely consumes you and you try and work too hard to come out of what could potentially be a difficult moment. But I feel as if I'm managing those times well. "As you get older, you think, 'Oh, can I keep doing this?' But it certainly makes the good days a lot better. You know after a game like Switzerland, do you turn the telly on? No. Do you listen to radio reports? Nope. But if it's 3-0 to Scotland, I would be lying if I said I wouldn't listen to some of it."

McGinn will make his 92nd Scotland appearance on Saturday night at the Todor Proeski Stadium in Skopje. In the tartan-clad city of Teresa, the piece concludes, few appear to have lost belief in him.