Saturday's goalless draw with Norway damaged qualification hopes and placed huge emphasis on next year's matches with the Dutch. Scotland are away to Holland in March before a potentially vital fixture against Bert van Marwijk's side next September at Hampden.

Holland defeated Iceland 2-0 in Rotterdam on Saturday evening to top Group 9 with six points, two more than Scotland despite George Burley's side having played one game more.

The Dutch travel to Oslo on Wednesday to play Norway but are now clear favourites to win the section, leaving Scotland and Macedonia to battle the Norwegians for a play-off spot.

"It looks like we're now chasing second," Gordon told the Evening News. "We have a couple of big games against Holland now. We probably need to take something from one if not both of those matches. We're capable of doing that. We've shown both at Hampden and on our travels that we can get results. The game in Norway looks as if we'll definitely have to take something there but our boys are confident of doing that too. We've done it before."

Gordon acknowledged the little margin for error that now exists for the nations pursuing second place. "It's a very tight group and everyone is capable of taking points off everybody else," said the former Hearts goalkeeper.

"We need to put in a very good performance against Norway, but we have done it before by coming away from there with three points and we can do it again. We have three of our last four games at home and we can still do this."