Gordon Strachan on...

... why Oliver Burke went from firstteam starter against Lithuania to not even making the bench against Slovakia “There’s a reason behind that and I just felt this game was for more experienced players. I explained to him at the time that there would be more-experienced players going on to help us either to maintain a victory or change the game.

“We have Ikechi Anya and James Forrest who have been in that position before. I spoke to the players about that.” ... why Leigh Griffiths was used so sparingly and whether he would have to settle for being a substitute in Strachan’s system “No, I wouldn’t say that. But you need to have a certain amount of height in international football teams to defend set-plays. As I have said many a time, if we had a World Cup team where you need to be 5ft 8in or under we wouldn’t be bad at all.

“It’s not because he’s small. It depends on the team. It’s not just Leigh Griffiths. You have to try to get the balance. I could pick a huge team but there would be a problem passing the ball. I could pick the smallest team and they could pass the ball better.

“But what we’ve struggled with is physical combat in the middle of the park and set-plays.”