STEVEN Whittaker today insisted that Scotland won't allow the pain of defeat to England to detract from the progress they've made under Gordon Strachan.

And the full-back stressed that the national side's players remain confident they can qualify for the Euro 2016 finals despite the devastating 3-1 loss on Tuesday night.

Whittaker and his fellow team-mates were unable to prevent Roy Hodgson's men recording an emphatic victory in the international friendly at Celtic Park.

A first-half header from the Arsenal winger Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and a double after the break from Manchester United's Wayne Rooney gave the visitors a comfortable win.

It was a massive disappointment to the 45,000 Tartan Army footsoldiers who had turned up at Parkhead hoping to see a famous triumph over the Auld Enemy.

Yet Whittaker felt that the Scotland players had been left both physically and mentally drained following their vital Group D win over the Republic of Ireland four days earlier.

And he is still encouraged by the morale-boosting victories the national team has recorded over Georgia, Croatia, Norway, Macedonia and Poland since Strachan succeeded Craig Levein as manager.

"We all feel we could have done a little bit better and feel that we have let the fans down a little bit with the way that we performed," the Norwich City man admitted.

"Credit to England. They pressed us really well and didn't allow us to play the way we have in the last few games.

"The English played well and deserved their win.

"But I think after working so hard to get the great win over Ireland there was a little bit of tiredness there.

"Having said that, we had plenty of time to get ourselves ready for the England game.

"I think we are a stronger side now than we were when we played England last season but I don't think we showed that on the night.

"We played better football at Wembley than we did at Celtic Park. We got the ball down and passed it a lot better.

"I think our performance on Tuesday night was a mixture of last Friday's game maybe taking a little bit out of us and not having the same energy as we maybe should have.

"But we can't take away from the fact we played against a good-quality side.

"The message after the England game was still positive. We knew we had let ourselves down a little bit.

"But we're not going to let it take away from the good work the manager has done since he took over.

"We will keep going towards the Euro 2016 Championships in France with the positives from this 10 days - top of which is obviously the victory over Ireland last Friday night.

"That was amazing game to be part of. The atmosphere was brilliant. It was such a big three points for us.

"We probably didn't realise how big it was until after the game when we looked at the Group D table. If we had lost against Ireland we would have been six points off where we want to be.

"So it was a great win and now we can look forward to our next qualifying tie against Gibraltar in March."

EXPERIENCED pro Whittaker was fulsome in his praise of the contribution made by Andrew Robertson in the games against Republic of Ireland and England.

Despite being aged only 20, the former Queen's Park kid acquitted himself extremely well in both outings.

And against England he combined well with substitute Johnny Russell to bag a late consolation goal, his first in the dark blue of his country.

Whittaker was impressed with how the Hull City left-back - who only won his first cap last season - performed in the high-profile matches.

The ex-Rangers defender predicted that Robertson will just get better and better as our bid to reach the European Championship finals in France in two years' time progresses.

Whittaker said: "Andy has been great. He is fearless and runs up and down that line constantly. His quality has made a difference to us.

"He has set up goals for us and scored against England. He deserves his success.

"Hopefully he will just go from strength to strength.

"Regardless of his goal, I think Andy had a belief that he could play at international level. He's come into the team and slotted in nicely.

"You can see from the path his career has taken that he is a confident and talented boy.

"In little over a season he went from playing part-time to playing in the Barclay's Premier League. The quality he has is there for everyone to see. He is only 20 so this is great experience for him."

WHITTAKER felt the game against England showed we have enough strength in depth to reach Euro 2016.

His confidence came from the quality of the substitutes Scotland were able to bring on - Russell, James Morrison, Darren Fletcher, Stevie May, Craig Gordon Barry Bannan, and Russell - while Alan Hutton and Steven Fletcher both missed out due to injury.

Whittaker insisted: "The quality in the squad we have now and the changes we can make is great. I don't think there is a weak point in the team. That can only be good for the country.

"It is good to see a young lad like Johnny Russell there. He was only on the pitch for 10 or so minutes but had an impact.

"It was a great experience for guys like him as well."