Pocognoli recognised that, while there has been praise for the victory and the creation of chances at the start of his reign, there is also criticism about the low chance conversion.
However, he was not yet concerned by any lack of goals and stressed: “We create more chances, so that’s a positive with the new group of players with totally new principle.
“Tomorrow I just hope we keep creating chances. The reality is we have to win tomorrow and score goals.”
Kieron Bowie, the striker on loan to Sassuolo from Hellas Verona, fired the first and only goal from open play under Pocognoli, with Aston Villa midfielder John McGinn adding the second from the penalty spot in North Macedonia.
“Kieron has been scoring for his club, Oli [McBurnie] is scoring goals for Hull City, Robbie [Ure] scored goals last season – this season is more challenging because he needs to adapt to a different level and it’s the same in the national team,” he stressed.
However, he pointed out: “After three weeks together, everything has to be better. We still have a lot to improve.”
He said Slovenia, who lost only 2-1 away to a Swiss side who beat Scotland 3-0 at Hampden, albeit the hosts were down to 10 men, would provide “a challenging game”.
“We face a team with a clear structure,” Pocognoli added. “They have good movement and good connection between the players and they did well against Switzerland.”
Despite recognising the game is “very important”, Slovenia counterpart Bostjan Cesar stressed that “there are more matches to play” in the group.
Pointing out that Scotland had been in League A in the last round of qualifying, he said: “The way Scotland play, we need to be very disciplined and we need to have a fantastic 90 minutes to match them.
“We need to find a balance with our attack and defence, we need to be together defending our goal and we need to be successful in attack.”