ROSS WALLACE believes he is best known in Scotland as being that wee Celtic winger forced to play left-back but who wasn’t particularly good at it.

And that is why at the age of 31 he has just one cap for his country, and of all the exiles currently plying their trade down south he is the one who has operated under the radar more than most despite having been a genuine success.

In England, where he's carved out a fine career since leaving Parkhead in 2007 after winning every domestic trophy, the Dundonian is regarded as a fine goalscorer and goal-maker, a skilful footballer with two promotions from the Championship, played for two seasons in the Premier League and has 350 first-team matches under his belt.

That is not bad at all. Indeed, Wallace’s CV of an established Championship player with top tier experience, plus everything he achieved at Celtic Park, makes him the ideal candidate for Gordon Strachan.

The problem is that it was Strachan who played Wallace at left-back at Celtic when he was never a defender in a million years – it was either him or Mo Camara so there was no real contest – and that seems to have counted against him.

Wallace and his Sheffield Wednesday team fell just short last Saturday of promotion to the Premier League when they lost the Championship play-off final to Hull City. This is the level the Scot is playing at and, yet, he is almost a forgotten man.

"I have a far better reputation in England than I have in Scotland,” said Wallace. “I am the first to admit that it would be great to get picked for Scotland.

"When I was at Celtic I kept getting played at left back for some strange reason when that wasn't my natural position.

"People have made judgements on my career and my ability based on the fact that they still probably see me as a full-back. They have not seen me playing down in England every week.

"I have played a lot of games and I have had successful times in England. I have been promoted twice to the English Premier League with Sunderland and Burnley, I was one game away from being promoted again with Sheffield Wednesday, so I’ve had a fairly successful career down south.”

That he has and it must be said that various Scotland managers have overlooked Wallace in preference to players not as good and certainly who have not played at the level he consistently has for the past nine years.

Wednesday were second best to Hull at Wembley last weekend, Wallace and his team-mates said as much themselves, but the backing they got from their support was first class.

This is a big club. It’s just they have had some fallow years. They will enter their 17th seasons outside of English football’s top league, the longest time in their history, and the early 1990s when they made cup finals and finished in the top six seem an eternity ago.

However, Wallace is happy in South Yorkshire after spells at Sunderland under Roy Keane, Preston North End and Burnley.

“It was an incredible support that we took to Wembley,” he said. “I have seen the Celtic supporters on a Champions League night at Celtic Park and that rivalled that. When you look at the Wednesday crowd they were unbelievable and they were singing non-stop and they all stayed back to cheer us at the end.

"They have been there all season for us and they have been unbelievable. The fans would have bitten your hand off to have a day at Wembley and the chance to get promoted. The biggest disappointment for us is that we never got it over the line.

"When the final whistle our fans gave us a tremendous ovation. They could have left the stadium and gone to the buses or to the boozer but they cheered us for our efforts and they have been magnificent all season.”

Wallace is almost a veteran now and believes he has one more crack at the Premier League within him.

He said: “We got off to a bad start this season, went on a bad run and were 17th after nine games. Hopefully we can improve on that next season.

"I am in the right spot and it is a privilege to play for this club and those supporters and I'll be certainly doing my bit to help Sheffield Wednesday go one better next season.

"We will have to wait and see what happens next season. We have an owner and a manager who will probably bring in players to make us stronger for next season.

"You have to remember we lost something like 15 or 16 players at the start of this season and we brought in about 12 or 13 and it was a big turnaround. In the last nine months we have come a long way but we will back fighting again next season.”

And if Wallace can help his club back to the Premier League maybe then he will get some recognition back home.