Scotland manager Gordon Strachan said his side showed mental strength to overcome Malta in their World Cup qualification opener and averted a "crisis".

The national team will return home with three points after a 5-1 win but needed a second half performance to earn the win after going in level at 1-1 at half-time.

Robert Snodgrass have given Scotland an early lead but just four minutes later Alfred Effiong headed home an equaliser to rock the visitors. Scotland got back on top through Chris Martin before Snodgrass struck twice to complete his hat-trick and Steven Fletcher scored. However, Strachan admitted that the first half had been "stressful".

Having changed out of his shirt and tie into a polo shirt for his post-match media duties, he said: "It's been a good night, stressful at one point and that's why I've not got my shirt on. I had to change.

"Winning was all we had to do. We wanted to try to perform, obviously, but it was about winning. We started well, we were moving the ball around well but we got too strung out after 20 minutes, they were too far away from each other. We sorted that out in the second half."

The manager said that his players had done well in reacting to the possibility of an upset, when negative thought or worry could have made the situation worse.

"There was a good start to the game and then there was a point, where many a footballer has been there and not handled it, when you think '1-1' and you think about the next month ahead and the nonsense you have to put up with," he said.

"You have to deal with that and it's not easy to play when it's like that.

"It's been proven before that when it gets to a crunch time that nerves, stress, lack of fitness takes over and you are on the end of an historic result.

"You are playing against a team, when it goes to 1-1, you know this team gave Croatia a good game here, only lost 1-0, gave Italy a game here, so you know it's not going to be easy.

Strachan added that he sensed the nervousness of the support and that the team had come through a difficult situation that showed their quality.

"It went from everybody enjoying themselves to 'oh oh'," he said.

"Scotland fans thinking, 'I've seen this before'. Scotland fans thinking, 'this could be history, the night we get one of our big results'.

"Thankfully the players who played laid that to rest.

"All the nervousness round about there - can you imagine if those supporters or reporters had been on there playing in that? They had to deal with that.

"We were lucky we had a bunch of lads who could deal with the stress that manifested itself because of that goal. A lot of teams have not got that.

"It just shows that in a crisis they can deal with it, these players. And that was a crisis."