The assistant boss has no plans to encourage his players to resort to gamesmanship but admits they must learn to be more streetwise in the wake of a 3-0 defeat in the Amsterdam ArenA.

Holland's second goal, in particular, has come under scrutiny after goalkeeper Allan McGregor found himself blocked on his line, allowing Robin van Persie plenty of room to find the net on the stroke of half-time.

Butcher insists Scotland must now follow the example of the Dutch masters and ensure they run the show at Hampden on Wednesday.

"The Dutch are pretty cute, as you would expect top players to be," he said.

"You need to have that awareness about you as well and we will need that on Wednesday.

"Set-pieces could prove to be vital and they certainly were when we beat Iceland 2-1.

"Hopefully we can be switched on even more now. We have to be cute, we have to give ourselves the best possible chance of winning matches.

"That doesn't mean diving or those kind of things, it means doing the things that are necessary to win games.

"We have to be as cute, if not cuter, than the opposition.

"When you play at international level, you have to make sure that things go your way in terms of big decisions, opening goals, set pieces."

McGregor made his competitive debut against the Dutch after boss George Burley expressed concerns about Craig Gordon's lack of first-team action at Sunderland.

However, Butcher revealed that Burley has yet to decide who will be handed the gloves for the visit of Iceland, suggesting Gordon could yet be recalled for the Hampden showdown.

"We will have a look at the boys in training today and tomorrow," he said.

"The manager has his thoughts and we have our thoughts and we will have meetings where we put our thoughts forward. Ultimately he makes that call so we will wait and see.

"You look at the reaction of the players after the match on Saturday, you look at how the team could line up to beat Iceland and then you pick the team accordingly.

"No position has been confirmed yet. The manager will pick the team and we will back him 100%.

"It's George's decision who plays and who doesn't play but it's great for us that we have three very good goalkeepers in our squad.

"It's nice that there is great competition for that place."

Not for the first time in this qualifying campaign were Scotland left feeling aggrieved by a controversial refereeing decision at the weekend.

French official Laurent Duhamel was criticised after disallowing a Gary Caldwell goal against Holland, while James McFadden claimed he was denied a penalty in Macedonia back in September.

"We can't do anything about those games now," said Butcher.

"We hope the referee will be efficient and do his job and I'm sure he will. More importantly, we have to do our job.

"There is no point bleating on about referees. We have to make sure we can make him make decisions that go our way in terms of getting into the box, getting set-pieces and putting pressure on Iceland."

Scotland's last home win was back in October 2007 when they triumphed over Ukraine in a European Championship qualifier and Butcher admits they must make Hampden a fortress from now on.

He said: "It was always a game that we looked at on the calendar and said we want to get three points from.

"All the others play in June and we don't so we have to get the three points on Wednesday.

"It doesn't matter how we get them, as long as we get the them. As long as we score one more goal than Iceland we will be happy and we are not particularly bothered how that comes about.

"We don't have to play fantastic football - we just have to make sure we get those three points."