Partick Thistle’s Liam Lindsay says that he will continue to work hard to catch the eye of Scotland manager Gordon Strachan, after being disappointed to miss out on the national squad for this week’s fixtures.

The 21-year-old was fancied by many to be drafted into the 30-man pool for the friendly against Canada and the World Cup qualifier against Slovenia.

With a dearth of young talent in the centre-half position and the fine form that Lindsay has shown this season, his teammates have since spoken of their surprise that he was overlooked.

But while Lindsay admits that he was hoping to get the nod from Strachan, he hopes that he can force his way into the reckoning by focusing on his form at club level.

“I am disappointed not to be involved, but I just want to concentrate on Thistle now and get into the top six,” said Lindsay. “If it comes it comes. If not, I’ll just keep working hard.”

In common with supporters of many of the so-called ‘smaller’ clubs in the Scottish top-flight, there are more than a few Thistle fans who feel that the reason Lindsay was ignored was down to the club where he plies his trade.

“You’ll need to ask the Scotland manager,” he said. “All I can do is keep playing, keep clean sheets and get the odd goal.”

It looked as though Lindsay’s disappointing week was on the up as Chris Erskine gave his side a deserved lead against Kilmarnock at Rugby Park on Saturday with around 20 minutes left on the clock.

For the second time in as many weeks though, the Jags couldn’t see the game out despite their dominance, and Lindsay hopes that these late slips don’t cost them a top-six place.

“It was a hard one to take,” he said. “That’s the second week in a row it’s happened, so it’s a horrible feeling.

“We just need to dust ourselves down over the international break, rest up, then get ready for the game against Ross County once we come back.

“Finishing in the top six is in our hands. We would be disappointed now if we didn’t get it. We outplayed Kilmarnock here and we outplayed Inverness last week.

“It will hurt if we don’t finish in the top six. But we just need to stick together because we know we have the squad to do it.

“The priority at the start of the season was obviously to stay up. But I think we are beyond that now.

“We are making it hard for ourselves with late goals, but I think top six is now the minimum we should be looking at.”

The nature of Kilmarnock’s equaliser three minutes from time was all the harder to stomach for Tomas Cerny, who made an uncharacteristic howler to allow a tame Connor Sammon effort slip past him.

“Tomas was devastated in the dressing room afterwards,” said Lindsay. “But he has saved us numerous times this season, so I think it will quickly be forgotten about.

“I sympathise with him because I know what it’s like when you make a mistake that costs a goal. He has probably done it a few times in his career, he’s getting old now, but he has the character to bounce back from it. He isn’t the type of guy to sulk about it.

“We didn’t deal with Killie for the first 20 minutes or so. But, after that, we got the ball down and passed it well. We could have had a couple of more goals by the time they equalised.

“It’s another late goal and we need to stop doing it.”