Craig left gutted as Scots' fortune finally runs out

Ukraine 2 Scotland 0
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SCOTLAND goalkeeper Craig Gordon felt Scotland's luck was in before they eventually fell to a 2-0 European Championship qualifying defeat to Ukraine. Gordon watched Andriy Shevchenko stab the ball against the post from close range two minutes after the break.

And the Hearts keeper believed the Scots may survive the onslaught in Kiev as they had in the 1-0 victory over France on Saturday. But Olexander Kucher steered home the opener on the hour mark and Shevchenko scored a last-minute penalty after a soft decision against Gordon's Hearts team-mate Robbie Neilson.

Gordon admitted he had felt the Scots goal was charmed before the opening strike.

He said: "It looked like it, especially when they hit the post from a good chance at the start of the second half. I just thought it was going to be our night again but, unfortunately, they've got a bit of quality in there and they didn't give up and they have had a fair few decent chances and managed to stick one away in the end."

Gordon was not immediately consoled by the fact that Scotland are still on target to qualify after the unexpected three points against the French at Hampden.

"It doesn't feel like that just now. We got greedy after the last game and we wanted to go out here and get another three.

"We would have settled for one but it just was not out our day."

Manager Walter Smith has accused the referee of contributing to Scotland's first defeat of the qualifying campaign.

Hearts skipper Steven Pressley saw red late on for preventing a Shevchenko goalscoring opportunity while second yellow cards of the campaign mean James McFadden and Darren Fletcher also miss the next qualifier against Georgia, along with Pressley.

And Smith insists Swedish official Martin Hansson has wrongly robbed him of a trio of key players for that game.

"Just as we were about to make a change and hopefully put some more balls into the box, there was an ordering off, which effectively killed the game," he said.

"It was an ordering off for preventing a goalscoring opportunity but I don't think it was a goalscoring opportunity because Gary Caldwell was going to get the ball. The Pressley decision was the wrong decision.

"You're always going to be upset at the result but I was more disappointed by the yellow cards for fouls which I felt were no worse than the opposition's."

While Scotland remain at the summit of Group B by virtue of their victory over France, Smith believes the decisions went against his players in that game too. "The referee treated Scotland differently from Ukraine and I felt that Saturday's game against France was the same," he added.

"Maybe the referees think the British sides are overly aggressive but I don't think Scotland are overly aggressive."

Shevchenko converted from the spot with two minutes to go when Neilson was judged to have fouled the Chelsea forward.

But Smith said: "I didn't see what happened because the fourth official was standing in front of me."

The Scots may have lost their 100 per cent record in the qualifying campaign but Smith was far from surprised at how tough a match it was in Kiev's Olympic Stadium.

"It was as difficult a game as we thought it would be," he said.

"There weren't many chances from either side in the first half and we rode our luck a little bit in the second half. Ukraine hit the post and then missed another couple of chances and we felt it might be a lucky night for us.

"Then decisions that were made by the referee made it very awkward for us."

Pressley, meanwhile, has told how his red card wrecked his birthday.

Pressley was hoping to celebrate turning 33 with a win from the match in Kiev.

Instead, he was ordered off late in the game after chopping down Shevchenko. "When I phoned my wife, she told me my little boy had asked why daddy didn't tell the referee it was his birthday," said Pressley.

"That cheered me up a bit but it's still not a good way to celebrate your birthday." He added: "I'm not going to point the finger at Shevchenko but he definitely used all his experience in that situation.

"I think he knew that if the ball went past me that I wouldn't catch him. Gary Caldwell was covering behind me and he would definitely have got it."

"The TV pictures showed that Robbie was unlucky at the penalty as well," added Pressley.

Celtic striker Kenny Miller confessed he probably cost Scotland at least a point with his glaring miss in front of goal when Ukraine were a goal ahead.

"I had a great chance to make it 1-1 and, if I'd got that, we would have fancied ourselves to go on and get a result," he said.

"All it needed was me to make a good connection but I didn't get enough on it.

"I also had the other one that hit off the post and, on an another night, that might have gone in."

The Scots still boast nine points from their opening four games, after wins over the Faroe Islands, Lithuania and France, and Miller believes they should not be down about last night's result.

"We shouldn't be too hard on ourselves. We shouldn't beat ourselves up," he said.

"We'd have taken two points from the two games against France and Ukraine and we ended up with three. To have nine points out of 12 is beyond what we believed we could do.

"We've now got five months before the next game and we'll pick ourselves up and come back for the Georgia game."

Taken from the Scotsman