CRAIG GORDON last night admitted the pain of Scotland defeats only gets worse as the years go by without any tangible success.

The Celtic goalkeeper, who has not given up hope of finishing second in the group, has now been though too many campaigns which have ended in disappointment.

However, far from getting used to it, Gordon revealed that his feelings about Scotland and the national team’s failure to become even a challenger in the current World Cup qualifying group are as bad as they ever have been before.

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“It gets worse and worse the more often it happens,” said the Celtic player when forced to reflect to Friday night and his previous hard times on national duty. “I don’t want to feel like this. It hurts.

“I want to make the country proud every time I step on that pitch to represent Scotland. We have tremendous fans – look at the numbers at Wembley – and we wanted points on the board to give them something to shout about. Let’s hope we can do that when the games resume in March.”

Gordon still believes at any rate. Scotland might be fifth, only the might Malta are below us, but the 45-times capped man has not given up hope of something quite ridiculous happening.

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“We’re not finished – we move onto the next game and try to win it,” he said. “We have a couple of home games coming up and if we get points from then we get right back in it.

“We have to hope England run away with the group and win it and we can fight it out for second place. Trust me we’re still in their fighting and will do our utmost to win the next two. We know we will need a couple of strong performances to get back into it and that’s what we look to do.”

Gordon could do little about the result on Friday night.

He said: Three close range headers make it harder for me. They wanted into those areas, they didn’t shoot from long-range. They wanted to get the ball within the posts and strike from there.

“If they do create they will be good ones. I didn’t have a save of note to make.”