McGhee: Scotland friendlies about development, not experimentation

Assistant Mark McGhee has stressed that Scotland's upcoming friendlies against Czech Republic and Denmark will be about development rather than experimentation.

Gordon Strachan named different squads for the Prague game on March 24 and the visit of the Danes to Hampden Park five days later.

Fulham striker Ross McCormack and Birmingham City's Paul Caddis were drafted in after the withdrawal of Norwich City duo Steven Naismith and Steven Whittaker and the Blues defender's inclusion took the number of uncapped players across both squads to 10.

However, McGhee insists that strategy formulated in the recent Euro 2016 qualifying campaign, where the Scots came up short, will be improved upon rather than discarded in the search for something new as they build towards the 2018 World Cup qualifiers which begin later in the year.

The Motherwell boss said: The only way it will differ is in the sense that there will be different players.Right at the very beginning when we started in the job, we were very determined that a style and a consistency of performance emerged and it did.

Okay we had really good days and poorer days but it kind of looked the same, regardless. And I think that is important.

So in the two games, we are not going to go 3-5-2 and then 4-4-2, it is not like that.

We are not here to experiment, we are here to develop. We have the basis of the way we want to play and we are going to roll that out again and try to improve on it.

So each of the games will be an opportunity to do that albeit with different players.

We are not fishing around for a system, we know how we want to play and we just have to make sure we do it better than we did the last time.''

McGhee, who revealed Naismith has a hamstring injury while Whittaker's wife is due to give birth, concedes there is no magic tablet'' to make sure that they will make it through to the qualifying campaign.

The former Aberdeen and Scotland striker said: I don't know whether there is much missing.

We scored goals against Ireland and Germany, we scored four against Poland, we maybe need to make sure we lose one or two less.

We have learned from the different types of games, home, away, against top teams, not so strong teams, so we have been through that experience.

I don't think there is any one thing that is a magic tablet, that we are going to take that is suddenly going to make us guaranteed to qualify.

I think it is all the things we do on the training ground, it is the attitude of people like Ross McCormack.

When we made the late call to Ross he couldn't get here quick enough, so that is the sort of attitude the manager wants.

All these sort of things will make us as good as and hopefully better than we were in the last campaign.''

Following the games against Czech Republic and Denmark, the Scots will play a challenge match against Italy in Malta and away to France before the Euro finals begin.

McGhee believes tests against such high standard of opposition will be beneficial for the World Cup qualifiers where Scotland will have to emerge from a section that includes England, Slovakia, Slovenia, Lithuania and Malta if they are to reach the finals in Russia.

He said: We are not interested in racking up results, I think the manager is interested in the players and learning what we can do against these sort of quality of teams.

We will play England in the qualification so to come up against good teams like France, Czech Republic and Italy away from home, will be hugely beneficial when we go to Wembley and abroad.

I think they are great exercises and the players will need be really focused to make sure that in these two games and the two in the summer, we are not embarrassed. We will have to play well.''

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