HE feels he has ruined all hope of rekindling the international career he had dreamed of since childhood.

He admits he has not made the progress as a player that he had hoped.

Should he fail to instigate a change in Rangers' crumbling season and somehow haul them out of the SPFL Championship, he will regard the last three years as a waste.

It is no wonder Lee Wallace looks back on the decision that shaped his career just over three years ago and asks himself, particularly in the midst of a season that has contained little light amid the darkness, whether he really did the right thing in hanging around at Rangers.

Wallace made his debut for the club in a Champions League qualifier against Malmo after arriving from Hearts in a £1.5m transfer in July 2011. He believed European nights and domestic titles would form his staple diet until, just seven months later, the club collapsed into administration and then liquidation under the chaotic stewardship of Craig Whyte.

Steven Naismith, Allan McGregor, Steven Whittaker, Steve Davis and Kyle Lafferty were among those who opted not to transfer their contracts over to the new company set up by Charles Green and left for free. Wallace, however, wanted to prove that he did not do walking away.

Ultimately, he just walked into the nightmare that never ends. Rangers, a shell of a club in the wake of further, well-documented mismanagement, are in the midst of a disastrous season and Wallace makes no attempt to sugarcoat that.

It hasn't been good enough. He hasn't been good enough. He knows things could have been much different had he chose to head for the hills too and admits that he can barely stomach the idea of another season in Scotland's second tier should Rangers fail to get through the play-offs.

"I've definitely got to stand by my decision, but I'm not going to lie and say I've never re-thought it, more so this season with how bad it has been," confessed Wallace.

"It was a decision I made at the time fully knowing I wanted to be part of this journey coming back up.

"The guys who moved on had all been a success at the club. They had won trophies and become full internationalists. I still saw myself in that bracket. I wanted to be successful.

"If that meant doing the Third Division, League One, the Championship and the Premiership, so be it.

"That's what I signed up for. I never saw this happening in three years' time.

"If we don't go up, it would feel like a lost season, but it would also feel like it has been a wasted three years.

"We always felt we had the ability and were going to make it a seamless transition straight to the Premiership. Not many of us could contemplate staying and playing another year in the Championship."

Wallace, of course, has had other issues to deal with. One of his closest friends, Murray D'Angelo, was killed aged just 28 when being hit by two vehicles after getting out of a taxi on the M8 motorway in December.

He also lost his grandfather shortly afterwards, but refuses to point to those losses as a valid reason for his own professional shortcomings.

"I had my own personal lows round about the Christmas period ," he said. "I played the Livingston game on the day of Murray's funeral. I don't know if it was the right thing to do, but I'm never going to use those moments as an excuse for my form or how the team has been playing.

"I am proper football man. I've taken my mate's amateur team on a Tuesday and Thursday night in pishing rain for the last four years, going halfway across Scotland for midweek games.

"I love football and always wanted to be a footballer. Moments like that off the pitch put everything into perspective, but I'm not saying it eases the pain of a draw with Alloa or Livingston.

"We have been nowhere near what we are capable of and it has been a massive disappointment."

Wallace is a name unspoken now when Gordon Strachan reads out his Scotland squads. He fears that is to remain a permanent state of affairs.

"I think it might be too late now," he said. "There has been the emergence of a number of players, not just at left-back.

"Andrew Robertson came in and he has done ever so well. His rise has been astonishing.

"I would never consider myself as a proper Scotland player anyway. I was in and out of squads and what have I got? Six caps?"

Asked if he feels his progress has been affected by Rangers' problems, he remains resolutely candid.

"Aye, of course," he replied. "When I said I wanted to see Rangers back through the leagues, I thought that I surely wasn't going to become a bad player in the two or three years or whatever it may be to get the club back to where we belong and get it to how it was before.

"I wanted to keep the standards high and it hasn't been the case on the park."

Easter Road is probably the last place Wallace, a former Hearts player, wants to go in this frame of mind. Last time he travelled there, Hibernian thrashed Rangers 4-0. They have won seven games in a row. Rangers have won one in nine.

"It's difficult to say we can go there with confidence when it's at an all-time low," conceded Wallace. "The 4-0 loss was one of the worst days many of us have experienced in our footballing careers."

One consolation is that the game is not at Ibrox. Rangers are booed off the park almost every time they play there and Wallace has no complaints.

"It has become a bit of a difficult environment, but that's our own doing," he remarked. "How can we complain when we've given what we've given?

"Everybody is kicking us."

Even one Rangers fan posted footage from the half-time interval in the midweek 2-2 draw with Alloa, which showed the Ibrox club's substitutes booting balls around the park aimlessly while their part-time opponents took part in impressive drills.

Wallace says the club is now more organised under Stuart McCall. McCall, himself, was unconvincing when asked about that internet clip that went viral.

"I saw the clip, I took it on board and I understand what the guy is saying," he said. "As a manager, you don't know what is going on at half-time.

"I am not saying it is right or wrong. I don't know what Barcelona do at half-time. It is something we might look at.

"Alloa were very regimented, apparently, in what they did and it looked organised and looked good. Fair play to them. Whether it makes a difference, I don't know. It probably looks better, doesn't it?"