Scotland boss Gordon Strachan happy to be facing France

Gordon Strachan is happy that Scotland's World Cup warm-up preparations have gone all the way to France on Saturday night.

The Scots, buoyed by friendly wins over the Czech Republic and Denmark in March, were left chastened after they failed to register a shot on target in the 1-0 defeat to Italy in Malta last Sunday.

Strachan's side will not be at the 2016 European Championships but will act as the final warm-up act for the star-studded hosts in Metz, which suits the Scotland boss, whose next game will be a World Cup qualifier against Malta in September.

"I am glad we took the four games on, glad we are playing France because I wouldn't like to have left after the Italy game with two days of training,'' said the former Celtic and Southampton manager.

"That will be of benefit. Only time will tell if it has helped us to qualify for the World Cup.

"We have had two results, one defeat, one goal against. We would love to have played better football but we are experimenting, finding things out.

"While other teams are practising for the Euros, we can practise for the World Cup, we are three-quarters of the way through it.

"We have learned so much about the new players and been able to discuss, and get on the coaching field to work on playing against new systems in order to get these problems sorted so that when we come together in late August we are ready for it.''

One local journalist at the press conference on Friday night suggested that the public in France see the Scots as a rough team.

However, striker Steven Fletcher, who spent the second half of last season on loan to Marseille from Sunderland, said: "We class ourselves as a football team, we try to pass the ball and try to attack as much as we can.

"We have some good young players coming into the team who have a lot of ability so hopefully we can make it a good game.''