GORDON Strachan today backed Celtic striker Leigh Griffiths to bounce back from his missed sitter against Slovenia - and help Scotland gun down England.

But the national team boss reckons Griffiths will have to get more game time for the Parkhead club in the final weeks of the season to feature against the Auld Enemy.

The Hoops hit man was given the nod to start up front for his country in their Russia 2018 qualifier on Sunday evening - even though he has only made four substitute appearances this year.

The 26-year-old squandered a gilt-edged chance in the first half before suffering a back injury and limping off injured early in the second half.

Griffiths, who was making his 12th appearance for Scotland, is still waiting to net his first goal at international level.

Strachan, though, is confident he can hit the target against Gareth Southgate's side at Hampden in June if he features more for Brendan Rodgers's team in the coming weeks.

Only one of the five forwards he selected in his initial squad for the Canada and Slovenia double header – Sheffield Wednesday player Jordan Rhodes – has been featuring regularly for their club side.

The 60-year-old, who would almost certainly have lost his job if his side had failed to win their fifth Group F outing, was relieved when substitute Chris Martin netted his 88th minute winner.

He believes the likes of Steven Fletcher, Griffiths, Martin and Steven Naismith must play regularly between now and the end of the 2016/17 campaign to increase their prospects of success against Gareth Southgate’s men.

Asked if Scotland could beat England if they can scale the heights they attained against Slovenia, he said: “Yeah, but what I would like is for players to get a regular game now, a real regular game, in the up front area.

“It was a big call (to play Griffiths) anyway. We have five strikers and only of them gets a game. And Jordan has only been getting that in the last four weeks. Before that he wasn’t getting a game either.

“I think a Griff that’s played 10 games scores those goals. I do. I think he does that. But it is not easy when you aren’t playing regularly to come out and hit the crossbar and hit the post and keep going. But he did it.”

Strachan, whose side moved up to fourth place in Group F with the victory and is now two points behind second-placed Slovakia, has backed Griffiths to shrug off the disappointment.

He said: “Griff did a lot of good things for us. You could see the size of their two centre halves. He was getting knocked and shoved, but he got back up again. When you see that from further behind, the guys will say: ‘Oh! I’ll join in here!’ I don’t think there was anybody who played badly. Everybody was fantastic.”

“He won’t get downhearted, not at all. How can you get downhearted by leading the line and leading a performance that is as good as we have seen here for a long? I think he should be very proud of that.”

Strachan, though, confirmed he will not be speaking to Brendan Rodgers at Celtic about the possibility of Griffiths getting more games once the Parkhead club have finally wrapped up their sixth consecutive Scottish title. “Brendan looks after his team first,” he said.