CRAIG’S LIST

Gordon eyes Euros starting slot after clinching the title for Hearts

CRAIG GORDON has spent his life preventing them but the Hearts keeper has a goal at the front and centre of his mind.

At the age of 38, with five league medals, three Scottish Cups and five League Cups in his trophy cabinet, Gordon believes the highlight of his career is still to come.

The Tynecastle No.1 is eyeing a starting slot in the Scotland side at the Euros and the door to staking a claim has been opened by an injury to the man in possession of the shirt, David Marshall.

The Derby keeper is a doubt for the upcoming World Cup qualifiers against Austria, Israel and the Faroe Islands, and Gordon will be almost certainly handed the gloves by national team boss Steve Clarke.

Then it will be up to him to make the most of the opportunity. Chances are he’ll be a whole lot busier than he was at the weekend when he hardly had a save to make as Hearts eventually wore down and dour but well-drilled Ayr side in Edinburgh.

A 2-0 win was as bread and butter as you’ll get. But there’s no doubt Gordon’s appetite has been whetted for a return to the international scene and the chance to add to his 55 caps.

He said: “I’d love to be in the Scotland squad. It’s going really well for the national team at the moment with the Euros to look forward to.

“I hope to play as well as I can and try to stay in the squad with that coming up – and the only way I’ll do that is to keep performing well here.

“It’s gone quite well for me personally recently. That’s all I can do – work hard and keep performing.

“Everyone wants to be fit and be in that squad. And once you are in it, you want to try to play in the Euros.

“And of course that is going to be the highlight of most of the guys in the squad’s careers. We’ve got everything to play for and it’s a great motivation to keep our performances high and perform well between now and the end of the season to give ourselves a chance to be in that squad.”

Gordon didn’t have much to do as Hearts extended their lead at the top of the Championship to 15 points.

And while the finishing post is in sight, Gordon, who captained the side in his 200th appearance for the Jambos on Saturday, is taking nothing for granted. He added: “We just need to concentrate on winning our own games. If we can do that then the games will start running out for everyone else.

“Dunfermline won again and we have to try to keep up the gap and keep winning by concentrating on our own performances.

“We need to keep winning games, however we do that, however we play, whether that’s good football or whether we have to scrap it out. There’s no team in this league who are going to hand us points and we will have to work for every victory we get.

“And sometimes it’s going to take a little bit longer to break teams down.

“But we managed to do that while staying solid at the back and that gives us a great platform to win games.”

It took them 71 minutes to make the breakthrough from a towering header by striker Armand Gnanduillet, which did justice to a superb free-kick delivery from Andy Irving. By that time Hearts were finally beginning to look dangerous, thanks to the introduction of Jamie Walker from the bench.

The attacker should have scored with his first touch of the ball but made no mistake in the 84th minute to give his side the breathing space they ultimately deserved, even if the overall performance was nothing to write home about.

Ayr remain involved in a battle to avoid the Championship relegation play-off spot but they were well organised, committed and prepared to hit on the break.

There was enough in the performance to offer hope to David Hopkin, who was only appointed on Tuesday and was happy with what he saw.

He said: “Once I’ve had a week of training with the players we’ll be fine.

“If we’d seen that free-kick out I think we’d have left with a point. We were excellent, even the flair players were prepared to work hard.

“If I see that commitment, desire and enthusiasm we won’t be far away.”

And despite being locked on 21 points with Inverness and Arbroath and out of the play-off spot only on goal difference, Hopkin, who takes his side to Dundee tomorrow night, isn’t ruling out a late charge for the top four.

He added: “Everybody is in the same boat. If one team goes three or four games and lose, and you go on a run you never know what can happen.”