First Scotland start in six years may be Rangers captain Lee Wallace’s last

RANGERS captain Lee Wallace admits he’s uncertain about his future as a Scotland player.

He knows that keeping the left-back berth he occupied against England is going to be very difficult.

The 29-year-old accepts he was only picked to play at Wembley because of injuries to Andy Robertson and Kieran Tierney.

Wallace believes they will be mainstays of the national squad for many years to come.

It has taken him seven years to collect his nine full caps and he accepts it won’t be easy to reach double figures.

Wallace said: “We were weaker as a squad without Andrew Robertson and Kieran Tierney.

“Even before the squad was announced, I said these guys are going to be the future in the left-back position for our country.

“I’ll be hungry to push them all the way if I’m picked in the future.

“But we all know their quality and that they’re going to go on to bigger and better things.

“These guys are top, top players.”

Scotland boss Gordon Strachan made special mention of Wallace’s performance against England in the wake of Friday’s night’s defeat.

That can maybe give him some hope of featuring for the country in another international.

Although vastly experienced, Wallace admits the years playing in the lower leagues with Rangers haven’t helped his career when it comes to performing at elite level.

That’s why Friday night’s game was his first Scotland start in six years.

His only previous competitive match came against Liechtenstein in September, 2010.

He admitted: “I’m really appreciative of those words from the manager.

“But I’m still gutted at the result against England.

“Even though I had eight caps, I had never played against the level of player England have, and we were playing with a new defence.

“It was a tough challenge, but I was determined not to use any of that as an excuse.

“I wanted to rise to the challenge, come in and do the best as I can.

“I could have maybe got a wee bit closer to Lallana for the header at their second goal and I’ll look at that.

“I will analyse my performance and learn from it.

“It’s so disappointing we didn’t give the Scotland supporters something to cheer about.

“But I believe there’s still hope in this qualifying campaign.

“We’re not going to be full of doom and gloom.

“There are four home games to come that are all winnable.

“We’re determined to move Scotland up the table.”

THE only place England can make amends for the misery of Euro 2016 is at the next World Cup in Russia.

According to Eric Dier, winning qualifiers and friendlies isn’t enough.

He and his team-mates let themselves and their country down badly in France, and he views the Finals in Russia as the only place to restore their reputation.

“The only way to fix the image of one tournament is at another,” says the Tottenham midfielder.

“I don’t think we can repair it in qualifiers. We can only do it by going to the World Cup and doing well there.

“It’s about the fans going home thinking: ‘They gave it their best go. There was nothing more they could have done.’

“It’s going to take a long time to apologise for that game against Iceland.

“We were just terrible. I came off at half-time and I was sitting there thinking I was going to go home and couldn’t do anything about it.

“We should have just trusted ourselves to get it back but panic set in.

“Having grown up in Portugal, and having friends in their team, I wanted them to win the Euros when we were knocked out.

“I didn’t think they were better than us but they had a fantastic belief about them and that’s what counts.”

Having played and been educated in Lisbon, Dier could have been part of that squad through residency qualification.

“Never once did I think I should be playing for Portugal,” he says. “When I was younger, they spoke to my club, Sporting, but nothing came of it.

“I’m 100% English. A lot of Brazilians play for Portugal and they’re not Portuguese. I wasn’t a big fan of that.

“I always had the idea that I would play for England, even though I consider Portugal to be my home.”

If Dier lines up against Spain in Tuesday’s Wembley friendly, it will bookend an eventful 12 months for the 22-year-old.

Last November he made his England debut in Alicante, having played less than 40 Premier League games. Since then he’s been a regular under three different managers.

The latest is Gareth Southgate, who was Under-21 boss when Dier asked to be excused from the squad two years ago.

“It was a simple situation that was blown out of proportion,” he explains. “I’d only been at Tottenham for a few months, and I’d played every game up to the international break.

“Everything had been a whirlwind, and I just felt I needed to stay at the club for a couple of weeks because I was going into a dip.

“Gareth completely understood and was absolutely fine with it.

“I might have been a risk but I think in hindsight it’s proved to be the right decision.”

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