OLIVER Burke says that his last-gasp winner for Scotland against Cyprus was the most important goal of his career, and he has now set his sights on doing similar damage to Belgium.
The West Brom man popped up in the last minute to save Steve Clarke's debut match turning into disaster after Andrew Robertson's stunning opener had been cancelled out late on by Ioannis Kousoulos.
That sparked an outpouring of relief around Hampden, and Burke was well aware of just how crucial a moment his strike could be in the qualifying campaign.
"It is a goal I will cherish forever," Burke said.
"It is definitely up there. Probably one of the best feelings I have had as a footballer.
"Getting another against Belgium would be even better.
"I am obviously hoping to kick forward now and do my best. I am going to work as hard as I can and put the shifts in in training and be ready for the next game."
Burke had come off the bench with a little under 20 minutes of the game left, replacing debutant Eamonn Brophy up front.
And after playing that role during his loan spell at Celtic last season, he feels he is ready to step up to the plate up front on Tuesday night in Brussels.
"I feel I have played that position for a while now," he said. "I benefited from my time in that position at Celtic and it is just about making sure I am ready at all times now.
"Whoever is in place to step forward and play that striker role has to be ready and be prepared to do the work because it is obviously a very tough job up top on your own. You have to put a shift in.
"Of course, I’d like to play there in Belgium. It would be an amazing opportunity, but we’ll see what happens."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel