Scotland goalkeeper Craig Gordon has hinted at his own frustration as he finds himself playing second fiddle to Allan McGregor for the national team.

The Rangers stopper appears to have leapfrogged the 35-year-old in the pecking order as he has taken the gloves for recent competitive matches with Gordon left to settle for a jersey in difficult friendly outings. 

At the start of Scotland’s Uefa Nations League campaign, Alex McLeish said the Celtic keeper and Rangers counterpart Allan McGregor would feature game-about as he did not want to nail down a No 1 for the position; McGregor emerged with his credit intact after his showing against Israel while Gordon has been left with a crick in his back given the repetitive nature of retrieving the ball from the back of the net from the friendlies against Belgium and Portugal.

Asked if he had been hung out to dry with recent games, Gordon said: “Yes – that hasn’t been lost on me but that’s the situation and those are the games I’ve been asked to play in. We lost seven goals in those matches but when you play against the best teams in the world there’s every chance that that will happen.

“I want to play in every game but he [Alex McLeish] has his job to do. He’s going to pick the team and I’ll play whenever I’m asked to and support whoever else is playing when I’m not.”

While Gordon was clear that he is unlikely to take a leaf out of Leigh Griffiths' book any time soon, he nevertheless believes that Scotland with the striker in the team are more potent than without.

Whether or not Griffiths is back in the fold for next month’s games against Albania and Israel remains to be seen. The undercurrent of Griffiths' situation appears to be that he is irked at playing second fiddle to Steven Naismith, with the Hearts forward quick to highlight his own credentials in the aftermath of the latest round of games.

Griffiths seem to rise to the challenge of proving his worth when his ability has been doubted and Gordon, his daily colleague, believes he is too good not to be involved.

“We want all of our players as fit as possible so that the manager has as many to choose from as possible,” he said. “If we can get Leigh back fit again for those games then he’ll definitely provide a goal threat, whether he’s playing from the start or coming off the bench because he has goals in him and he’s always capable of scoring.”

It is difficult to escape the feeling that McLeish himself is under considerable pressure going into the next round of games.

In his second spell in charge of the national side, McLeish has played eight games, lost six and won just two. On the way Scotland have lost 13 goals and scored just five.

However, Gordon has maintained that Alex McLeish’s side can still top their Nations League group, despite the inept performances that characterised the latest round of international games.

Scotland collapsed against Israel last week before enduring defeat to Portugal in a friendly on Sunday night at Hampden. It did little to add to the struggling morale within the national team but Gordon did his best to spin an optimistic vision.

“There are two games left and, if we win both of them, then we’re through to the next stage; it’s as simple as that,” said Gordon. “That’s what we have to focus on – we need to lick our wounds from this and then bounce back with two victories.

“I thought we restricted Portugal to relatively few chances but when the chances that come their way are as good as those ones were then you know that they’re going to take them.”

In fairness to Gordon, there was little he could do with any of the three that went past him on Sunday night at Hampden.

Left exposed, the Celtic keeper had no chance with any of the goals, not that it alleviated the frustration of what was a difficult evening.

“We’re obviously unhappy at the way we lost the goals,” he said. “Other teams aren’t having to work hard for them but at least we didn’t give the opposition as many opportunities as we did in the previous game. However, when you give them up right in the middle of your goal, you’re going to be in trouble.

“Their second goal came from a free-kick routine which we knew they’d practised and we knew exactly what we had to do to defend it; we just didn’t carry it out properly.

“I was disappointed to lose three goals because I didn’t think we played too badly. We tried to keep the ball and I thought we played out well from the back; we set the team out quite well and got the ball into the wide areas and, although we didn’t really create anything at the other end until the very last second, we at least put ourselves in positions where we might have done.

“We always want to win and it was about trying to put in a good performance and there were a few positives we could take from it. At the same time, we’ve still lost three soft goals and we didn’t do a great deal to stop that happening. We can’t deny that.”