Gordon Strachan last night hailed the departing Stuart McCall a great talent as the Scotland head coach set his sights on replacing his valued assistant.

Former Rangers star McCall has returned to his boyhood favourites Bradford City to take over the manager’s role at Valley Parade and Strachan will now sit down with SFA chiefs next week to discuss potential candidates ahead of Scotland’s World Cup qualifying campaign.

Strachan, who was speaking during a Footgolf event ahead of this week’s SSE Scottish Hydro Challenge at Macdonald Spey Valley, said: “Listen, like Mark (McGhee), Stuart is too talented a boy not to be working.

“Both of them can't work computers or do a presentation and that might be against most managers these days. But what they have both got is a wealth of talent.

"They have too much talent not to be full-time. I told Stuart, 'I'm delighted and I'll miss you' because he brought a nice balance between Mark and I. We had a couple of games without Stuart when he was the Rangers manager, allowing him to concentrate on that. It was harder for the coaching staff, that's for sure. So we'll have to decide if we do that or get someone else in.”

The Scottish national side have been left peering on from the outside as another footballing showpiece takes place following their failure to qualify for the Euro 2016 finals but Strachan still insists his side are better than some of the teams currently competing in the French fiesta.

The success enjoyed by the likes of Wales, Northern Ireland and Iceland, who have all qualified for the last 16 of the tournament, has only added to the air of despondency surrounding the Scottish game on the international stage.

Iceland, in particular, with a population of just over 300,000, are flourishing in their first appearance at a major championship while Wales, driven by the talents of Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey, continue to grow in stature. Croatia, meanwhile, who Scotland beat home and away in the World Cup qualifiers back in 2013, achieved a momentous triumph on Monday with victory over reigning European champions, Spain.

Strachan added: “I’m convinced that we are better than some of the teams there and we have proved it. Germany and Poland, two of the teams from our group, are flying along so I do believe that we are good as teams there if not better than some. Iceland have something going on. Is it a one off? Is it just a group of lads who have come together in that special moment? Can they keep doing this for the next 20 years? You never know and that’s the test.

“Wales have a world star in Bale and they have top international players in Ramsey and Joe Allen. If you look where they play, they play regularly in Europe. Our problem is that we had no one playing in Europe. Wales have the experience of players who have played in European football and that makes international football easier. You go back to Celtic and Rangers 10 years ago. Between us we sent 11 players away with Scotland who were playing in Europe week in week out.

The largely dispiriting friendly defeats to Italy and France recently, encounters that led to Scotland being condemned as ‘cannon fodder’ by certain sections, may have produced a downbeat reaction but Strachan defended the decision to play against two world powers.

“Hysteria is common in Scottish football,” he said. “It would have been easy for me as the manager to say ‘who can we play that we’ll beat that will make me and the players look good?’

“If I wanted to protect myself I’d have picked the best players and the weakest teams to play against. Or, you put your neck on the line and go ‘you guys rest and we’ll go with a squad where we can find out what these players can do’ and we’ll be better for the future. We went for that other option.”