Gordon Strachan says Shaun Maloney has all the attributes he is looking for from his Scotland players.

The Hull star was left out of the squad for their opening 2018 World Cup qualifying win over Malta but has now been brought back into the fold for the games against Lithuania and Slovakia.

Despite finding regular football hard to come by on Humberside, Maloney has impressed with his dynamism off the bench, much to the delight of Strachan.

The experienced coach has praised the 33-year-old’s attitude and believes having him around can only be positive for the squad.

Strachan said: “Shaun has been used as a substitute quite a lot with Hull and played a game last week against Stoke, a terrific game.

So he is back in again. “He has professionalism, ability, intellect, willingness to play for Scotland. So he’s got all these traits that we want along here.”

As well as veterans like Maloney, Strachan has also included a number of youngsters such as RB Leipzig’s Oliver Burke and Celtic’s Kieran Tierney.

The boss admits he is happy to promote his country’s up and coming stars and says he will always give them a chance if he feels they are good enough.

He added: “We still have some of the younger lads in the squad as well. If they are good enough we’ll stick them in, we will bypass the under-19s and 21s which we did with Ollie (Burke).”

Meanwhile, Group F rivals England are currently priced as the 1.18 favourites to top the pool, with Slovakia second in the betting at 11.00.