CRAIG GORDON will play against Slovenia tonight knowing Scotland have not had a shut-out in their past seven games.
The international keeper was in charge the last time the defence held out in a 1-0 win over Denmark at Hampden a year ago this week.
Gordon said: “I did play in that game, so, hopefully, I can get another clean sheet.
“However, we have probably not defended well enough as a team.
“That’s not just the guys at the back, it’s the entire team. If you look at the way we played at club level, we have really gone after teams and put them on the back foot.
“We’ve pressed and chased them down.
“If we can take that into this team, it’s going to take pressure off the defence.
“We need to defend all over the pitch, close people down and be prepared to do the unselfish work.
“When we have the ball, there is no doubt that we can play.
“But we have to the other side of things, too.”
Gordon, now with 45 caps, made his Scotland debut against Trinidad and Tobago at Easter Road 13 years ago.
But he has missed out on playing in the finals of a major tournament with his country. Amazingly, the last time Scotland performed at that level was in the World Cup Finals in France in 1998.
Since then, there has been nothing but gloom for the national side and Gordon Strachan’s men are up against it agin as they prepare to take on the Slovenians this evening.
Gordon added: “My debut wasn’t really that long after we had last qualified for a finals. That’s how long I have been playing.
“I didn’t think we’d go this long without it.
“It had only been a few years since the last one and we had only missed out on a couple since when I got into the team.
“And we had a good enough team that we could push for the play-off places, then if you get a good draw then you have a good chance of getting in.
“We’ve definitely had our chances since.
“There have been games when we should have done better.
“We’ve put ourselves in good positions at times, but not managed to get over the line and get to the finals or the play-off spot.
“And we can’t blame anybody but ourselves.
“There have been games against teams that we should have taken more points from and didn’t do it.
“You can point to a few individual matches, but overall we have just not managed to get there.”
