Scotland and Celtic goalkeeper Craig Gordon on the sting in the tail to his dream season

Or at least converge on the ball at the same time to force Kane to win a header? Even at a distance of four days, the internal machinations of the goalkeepers’ mind still reads like some kind of Shakesperean sporting soliloquoy.

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Let’s make it clear right now that he was hardly the only man holding their hand up if we want to play the blame game. Defenders like Charlie Mulgrew left their positions with reckless abandon, James McArthur didn’t exactly squeeze the cross, and we wouldn’t have been here at all if Stuart Armstrong and his fellow counter attackers had been able to chaperone the ball to the opposing corner flag, but the Celtic goalkeeper admitted “it was possible” that he could have come for the cross.

“When it first came over I thought Harry Kane could maybe have met it with his head, and if he had done that he’d have probably beaten me to the ball,” said Gordon. “But then he lets it drop for a volley and, by the time he does that, it closes the distance between us and makes it look like the ball was closer to me.

“I could have thrown myself at it and tried to make it a 50-50: it was just one of these decisions that come up late in a game,” he added. “It was close, and hindsight is always a great thing. If he hits it off me it’s a good decision, and if he doesn’t then people will look at it and think I could have come for it. If I did go, and he went to head it, he might have beaten me to it anyway. So it was a close call.”

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That is why football is a team game - with team responsibility shared - and not an individual one. Small details like Saturday’s - even if they are critical, historic ones - should not be able to colour the individual achievements of what has been an utterly momentous one for this player, who not long ago was feared lost to the game with a serious knee injury.

If there is one statistic which sums it all up, it is surely the fact that Gordon has been beaten just three times in the UK this year, by Barcelona and Borussia Moenchengladbach in the Champions League at Parkhead and against England at Wembley in November. No wonder he was reminding himself of that as he left Hampden Park on Saturday.

“It’s still been a great year for me personally,” said Gordon. “It’s been a great season. To only be beaten in two games at home at club level – by Barcelona and by Borussia Monchengladbach – is good. The only other defeat for me was against England at Wembley, so it’s been a good year. I’ve not lost many goals, I can’t complain, we’ve had a great season at club level and to get back in the national team has made it a good year. It’s a pity we couldn’t finish it off with a win against England to make it extra special.”

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The late brain freezes aside, there was much to admire about the way Scotland went about things on Saturday, particularly during the great swathes of the second period where they made England look decidedly uncomfortable. The 3-4-2-1 shape, which can accommodate both Kieran Tierney and Andy Robertson on their preferred sides, has promise and Gordon feels that Scotland could yet record the four wins they need to retain a chance of Russia. “It was sore to lose a last minute goal, but we’ve not been beaten, which is what we set out to do at the start of the week,” said Gordon. “We just have to keep winning games. I don’t know how many points it’s going to take to get that second spot. That might be the case [we have to win all four games], or it might not. We just have to try to win as many as we can and see where we get to.”

In any case, Gordon has less than two weeks to get over it all before returning for club duty. The prospect of Champions League qualifiers tends to focus the mind, but at least Celtic - unlike the days of Lincoln Red Imps - have an established pattern of play in place this time. “It’s about 11 days before we are back in so we won’t [get a chance to refresh], but we’ve got the biggest club games of the season coming up to try to get into the Champions League, so we just have to get ready and go into them in the best shape that we possibly can. There are a lot of differences between the team that started then and the team now. There is so much more confidence running through everybody and we can take that into the qualifiers.”