McGregor not giving up on qualification

to be upset about it.” While McGregor fully supports Levein’s ongoing stewardship of the Scotland squad, he did take issue with the manager’s recent assertion that the players had a less professional and intense approach to training sessions when he first took the job.

“I wouldn’t say so,” said the Rangers goalkeeper. “Over the 18 months the manager has been with us, we have progressed as a group and got better as a group. But I wouldn’t say we are working any harder in training now. We worked hard in training before. I just think we have improved as a group.”

McGregor has established himself as Levein’s first-choice goalkeeper in the absence of Craig Gordon but insists he will never take the position for granted. Gordon, currently battling his way back from injury at Sunderland, has stated he still considers himself as Scotland’s number one keeper.

“I don’t think you can ever be secure in the role, especially at international level,” said McGregor. “Craig has done great things for Scotland and I only got in because he was injured. His mindset is that he’s the number one. That’s fine, that’s a strong mentality. The way I see it, I would never say I’m number one. But that’s just me, different people see things differently. Obviously I want to try my hardest in every training session and game to stay in the team. If that’s not good enough, I’ll try even harder.”

McGregor has not given up hope of playing in next summer’s Euro 2012 finals, despite the size of the task now facing Scotland, who finish their Group I campaign with away games in Liechtenstein and Spain next month, hoping for Czech Republic to drop points in their last two fixtures against Spain and Lithuania. “We are still in with a chance,” said McGregor. “We have given ourselves a mountain to climb and we need results to go our way, but we are definitely not going to throw in the towel. If it comes down to needing something in Spain, we showed in the home game against them that we can compete with them. The boys will do their damndest to get what we need if it goes to the last game. The Czechs could find it hard when they go to Lithuania, even though Lithuania don’t have anything to play for now. Spain will be the same, now they have qualified, but they could have players coming into the team looking to prove they are worth a starting place. So you can’t tell what difference that would make. Looking back over our campaign, I don’t remember us creating loads of chances away to Lithuania or Czech Republic and maybe that’s a regret.

“You saw over the past two games we created more chances and didn’t take them. It’s ifs and buts really and we would be in a better position if that penalty decision hadn’t gone against us on Saturday. But we have a lot of good young players coming through and things will get better for Scotland.”