Russia coach Fabio Capello is quite happy to endure more criticism as long as his team beat Israel on Tuesday.

Capello's side are second in Group F of the World Cup qualifiers and can go top with a win in St Petersburg.

Russia have won five of their seven qualifiers so far, most recently beating Luxembourg 4-1 last week.

But that result was not enough to placate Capello's critics who, following the surprise defeat in Northern Ireland last month, continued to find fault with the team.

Capello told www.rfs.ru: "I hope that after the match against Israel they will also criticise, but the result will be as successful.

"You know, I'm always quite critical myself, but everything should be in moderation.

"Luxembourg are performing well in the current qualifying phase, they lost badly only against Israel (a 6-0 defeat), and in other games have got good results.

"I'm really picky about the team, but the important thing is that the team got a good result."
A win for Israel, who were disappointingly held to a 1-1 home draw by Azerbaijan last week, would put them ahead of Russia and into second place - which brings with it a likely play-off - with two to play.

But a match against Portugal is also still to come and, while the Russians have a relatively easy run-in, there was an air of resignation about the camp following the Azerbaijan draw.

"As things currently stand, Russia and Portugal will end the group in the first two places, but we will have to play for our pride," coach Eli Guttman said in the Jewish Chronicle.

"This campaign makes me sad. You prepare for months and then it ends like this."

Northern Ireland threw away a winning position against Portugal last time out, but their win over Russia has engendered a new sense of optimism ahead of their clash with Luxembourg.

Although their chances of qualifying for the World Cup are on the wrong side of slim, defender Jonny Evans is targeting a place at 2016's expanded European Championship, with the new 24-team format giving hope to some of the continent's smaller teams.

"We're in a good place as a squad. It feels like we have things worked out a bit and if we can continue in that fashion there is that wee bit of hope," said Evans.

"The extra teams are qualifying in the next campaign and that gives us a big incentive. But we need to go back to this campaign first, finish as strongly as we can and put points on the board.

"That might have an effect on the seedings and the draw for the next qualifying campaign."