Gordon Strachan says tough games will teach Scotland more

Gordon Strachan believes he will learn more about his Scotland players from tough friendlies in the next few weeks than he would have in easier matches.

He has taken a squad to Prague for a friendly with the Czech Republic on Thursday and will then use a largely different group of players against Denmark at Hampden Park on Tuesday.

The Scots will also play Italy and France before the start of Euro 2016, a tournament they will be missing from after failing to qualify.

Strachan is preparing for the World Cup qualifiers which will see his team come up against England, Slovakia, Slovenia, Lithuania and Malta as they bid to reach the 2018 finals in Russia.

He has included 10 uncapped players in his two pools for the first pair of games and hopes it can be an educational experience.

Strachan said: "We could have picked easy games, the next four friendlies could have been easy, but we will really judge the players when they go to play top international sides like Czech Republic.

"We need to play these teams to find out if we have the players that can come through and play at this level, be comfortable at this level and work in the system that we will try and work on.

"We feel we have right good players, they have got good players. Ability is a huge factor. Playing as a team, that is what we try to do.

"At the moment we have not got great players, but we have a great group of players who want to do well for the country and are willing to put themselves out for the country.

"We make ourselves into a very good side by application, which we have seen this week and so that is what we are trying.

"Other teams have individuals who are better than us but we have managed to beat them because of our team work."

Aston Villa defender Alan Hutton should win his 50th cap in Prague while Robert Snodgrass could make his first international appearance since 2013 after a long-term knee injury.

Strachan added: "Alan has done very well for us, especially through the period when he wasn't getting regular games for his club. He was one of our best performers.

"Like all managers, we are delighted for him to be winning his 50th cap but we'd like to see more people coming through and trying to put more pressure on Alan.

"That would drive him on to play even better and it would be good for us to have competition all over the place.

"Robert has a bit of character, he's got skill and he has been radiating the dressing room since he came back, which is great.

"It would have been great to have him in the squad but the players who played did very well in terms of trying to make goals for us and working hard for us. But it's great to have him back, absolutely great."