GORDON Strachan reckons his “gamble” of not selecting a full-strength Scotland squad for the Czech Republic friendly has paid off – by increasing his options for the World Cup qualifiers.

Strachan named two 18 man squads for the double header against the Czechs in Prague on Thursday night and Denmark at Hampden on Tuesday.

The former Celtic boss knew that going into a game against opponents who had topped their Euro 2016 qualifying section without all of his best players could have backfired on him.

However, his team ran out narrow 1-0 winners over Pavel Vrba’s side in the Stadion Letna thanks to a breakaway goal from Ikechi Anya in the first half.

Paul Caddis of Birmingham City, Kenny McLean of Aberdeen and Tony Watt of Blackburn Rovers all made their Scotland debuts.

Meanwhile, Barry Bannan of Sheffield Wednesday and Matt Phillips of QPR came on in the second half and performed well.

Elsewhere, Robert Snodgrass, who wasn’t involved at all in the failed bid to reach Euro 2016, played for the full 90 minutes and acquitted himself supberly.

And Ross McCormack, who was only called up on Sunday night as a late replacement for the injured Steven Naismith, set up the winning goal.

Strachan is already looking towards the opening Russia 2018 qualifier against Malta in Valletta in September.

He believes that several of the players involved in the Czech win have put themselves in contention for that game and their subsequent Group F games against England, Slovakia, Slovenia and Lithuania.

“If we can come out of these two games with a lot more choices than we had going into the games then it’s been a success,” said Strachan.

“As far as Thursday night went, you could say that’s happened already. That’s the gamble we took.

“But when I was picking the squads I was thinking about the players at this time of the year. It didn’t make sense to take them all away for nine days when some of them maybe wouldn’t get a game.

“It could have been a case too that they could have trained too hard. So it was four days max. It was a gamble, like I say, but it was a way to look at more players. It’s onto the next game now.”

He added: “It was a bit of a gamble having two squads but we thought it would benefit players for the remaining games they have to play in.

“The other benefit is seeing more players and how they are in the group. That’s a bonus and that’s why I say that a lot of guys in the group have done themselves proud on Thursday night, especially in the second half.”

“There were a lot of players you would expect to start the game who weren’t here tonight, so that’s a huge bonus.

“It’s a bit of a gamble when you come to places like this and don’t have a full squad. But the group has made it a good night and they can be proud of what they did.

“Even the guys who got on had to work hard. I keep saying, we turn up and did a double session the other day. We had to do it because we are not a great side.

“But we can turn ourselves into a decent side by working hard. They had a great learning curve.”