Scotland assistant manager Mark McGhee insists that no-one should read too much into the national side’s starting line-up against Qatar at Easter Road tomorrow night.
The friendly is simply a warm-up game with all the focus firmly on Scotland’s crunch European Championship qualifier in Dublin against the Republic of Ireland next Saturday.
However, speaking at the team’s Mar Hall training base yesterday, McGhee admitted that manager Gordon Strachan will still give careful consideration to who plays against Qatar, especially some of the English-based players whose seasons ended a month ago.
He said: “Some of the ones who play on Friday will end up playing against the Republic.
“We will also look at the ones who haven’t played for a while and make sure they get some game time.
“The ones who have played recently might not need to play as much in this match.
“We also need to put the right team together that is the right shape and strong enough.
“We only have a finite amount of our best players and to take on anyone, you need some of your best.
“Therefore there will be a mixture. It won’t be that you can look at the team on Friday night and know the ones sitting on the bench will play against Ireland.
“We had a great session at Hampden this morning and it was very positive.
“We are using Friday night as preparation for next Saturday.
“There are guys who haven’t played for 35 days so there are things to be gained from the game.”
While McGhee admitted that Strachan has his mind set on the core of his first-choice XI, there are still positions where people can play themselves into contention for a starting spot against the Irish.
He said: “We go into it (Qatar game) with an open mind to an extent.
“There are inevitably some players who will play. If I said to you here write down the players who will definitely play against the Republic, then we would more or less write the same five or six.
“There is a core of players Gordon will feel will play.
“After that, there are five more positions and realistically there are eight or nine players who can take them.
“The core of the team won’t change.”
One of the players who could force their way into the manager’s thoughts is Stoke City’s Charlie Adam whose end-of-season form and THAT goal from inside his own half against Chelsea earned him a recall to the national squad.
McGhee stressed: “Charlie Adam isn’t here just to make up the numbers.
“Charlie’s here to prove to us in training or if he plays against Qatar that he should start against the Republic.
“He had a tremendous end to the season and we couldn’t ignore that.
“I think given that he has just come back into the squad and there are automatic starters, he comes into that category of players who have the opportunity to put themselves in the manager’s eyeline and come into serious consideration to start as will one or two others.
“Within the framework that we give them, players have to be able to improvise and if Charlie’s thing is trying that (attempting to score from within his own half), then we cannot curb that he will try it.”