THE talk was of Operation Bale.

Mark McGhee sat inside Scotland HQ and considered the steps that must be used to counter the raids of the Flying Welshman. The fearful populace believe nothing short of searchlights, ack-ack and a gunner with excellent eyesight will prevent Gareth Bale from wreaking havoc on the lines of Caledonian defence on Friday.

McGhee, second in command of Team Scotland, revealed in a briefing he has done the recce and may have a cunning plan. "We have hopes," he said enigmatically of the strategy to stop the Tottenham Hotspur player, who will hope to repeat the display delivered in Cardiff in October when Wales visit Hampden on Friday.

McGhee has been detailed to spy on Bale ever since Gordon Strachan took over as Scotland manager in January and looked at his first competitive match in charge. "I have watched a lot of him," McGhee admitted under questioning. "He is as good a player as anyone in the country. So we have to give him respect. However, we are more likely to come out on top if we do it as a team and concentrate on what we are going to try to do, rather than thinking we can do it simply by stopping him."

The Welshman suffered a knock in the defeat by Fulham on Sunday and McGhee posited, more in hope than expectation: "What if Bale's not playing? It is still a difficult game and we need to beat Wales with Bale in the team or not. I have watched him a lot and against different teams. I have seen things that we can do tactically that can make life a little bit more difficult for him but as a team – not saying to an individual: 'Your job is going to be to stop Gareth Bale'."

He admitted he had specifically targeted Spurs games, adding: "I have gone in the hope of seeing someone do something tactically that can help us and I have seen things. One of the issues we have to face is that we don't know where he is going to play."

He pointed out the 23-year-old had played as a centre forward, off the front and on both wings. "You don't know where he will pop up," he said. "We feel we deal with him as a team, rather than individually. There has been one thing we have spotted that we will work on. We have hopes . . ."

This hope has been strengthened by repeated watching of the 2-1 defeat in Cardiff. McGhee was at the match and has watched it at least five times since. "It was a horrible circumstance the way we ended up losing," he said of the night Scotland had a "goal" wrongly disallowed. "Those who played will bring some of the hurt and disappointment to galvanise their performance. That is for them. From our point of view, it is staying in the present. We can not worry about what happened then."

He pointed out Scotland had played well for much of the match, certainly before the full fury of Bale was unleashed. "There is a huge amount of confidence we can take in the sense of knowing that we can play against them, that we have the potential to win the game. We were not beaten hands down. We can take a lot of positives from it," he said.

He was insightful on a player who may make his debut and encouraging to a hero who seeks a return to the front line. Liam Bridcutt, the 23- year-old Brighton and Hove Albion player, has joined his first squad and McGhee said he was one of a group of contenders who had a chance to play. "He is a a wee bit of a specialist," he said of a player who qualifies through his grandfather. Bridcutt plays just in front of the centre-backs, adding an extra layer of defence. McGhee would, of course, not say so but the central defence is an area of concern.

He added of Bridcutt: "He is not the guy who is going to create a goal but his consistency has been fantastic and if you talk to people at Brighton they have high hopes for him. They are hoping for promotion and believe he is someone who can go with them, but they have fears that if they don't progress they could lose him to a higher level."

On James McFadden, the Motherwell maverick, he was strongly supportive. "I saw the game and I thought he was excellent," he said of McFadden who played a leading role in a demolition of Hibernian. "He is 29. He has been, and still is, a really top player in Scottish terms. The fact he has only played one 90 minutes in three years is the reason why he is not here."

McFadden, who has won 48 caps, should not despair of adding to that tally, however. "If he is playing 30 or 40 games next season, then I can't imagine that he wouldn't be back in contention," he said. "Really, it is about him. I don't know what he is thinking. If he feels he has got the desire to play at the highest level he possibly can, and he does that, then I can't see any reason why he wouldn't be in the Scotland squad."

McGhee, though, believes the Croatia match in June will come too soon for any return from The Hero of Paris. In the meantime, Operation Bale remains the squad's objective.