Craig Gordon accepts that the good impression he has made at Sunderland this season will not end traditional jokes about Scottish goalkeepers.

The 24-year-old moved to Wearside from Heart of Midlothian in August for a fee of £7 million which could rise to £9 million with add-ons. If it does reach that figure, Gordon’s move would create a British transfer record fee for a goalkeeper. And the former Tynecastle No 1 has already made strides to repay his fee with some impressive performances so far.

However, when asked if these are changed days regarding the reputation of Scottish goalkeepers, Gordon, preparing for Scotland’s Euro 2008 qualifier against Ukraine at Hampden Park, replied: “Not really. I still get reminded of that on a regular basis at Sunderland.

“I think it is something that that will never go away. But it’s something that I’m certainly not going to concern myself with. I go out there to do my best for the team and hopefully it will be good enough.

“We have a few Scottish goalkeepers in England now which is nice, we have Neil Alexander playing at Ipswich. When I first came in to the team there wasn’t an awful lot of Scottish goalkeepers playing first-team football but that has turned around.”

Gordon will have to be at his best against Ukraine tomorrow if Scotland are to remain top of group B before they travel to Georgia for the penultimate qualifier on Wednesday.

“We are up against a top-quality team,” he said. “They have been quite possibly our most difficult opponents so far. Ukraine beat us over there and they played well against us that night in Kiev. We had one or two chances to take something from the game but we ended up quite rightly getting beat.

“They won’t be much different away from home, they will be coming to win the game to get themselves back in to the frame. But we are at home with our fans behind us so we are looking to win the game.”