Hearts striker Lawrence Shankland insists going to Euro 2024 with Scotland is still his aim despite being left out of the squad for the upcoming fixtures against Georgia and Norway.
The 28-year-old scored twice against Motherwell as Steven Naismith’s side bounced back from their recent League Cup semi-final disappointment with a 2-1 win at Fir Park.
And Shankland insists he has no concerns about not being selected by Steve Clarke this time around.
He said: “I don’t have regular conversations [with Clarke], I don’t think anyone does with international managers.
“He does his job out with all the clubs, I concentrate on what I’m doing here. He spoke to me before the last camp when I was left out.
“He called me to let me know I wouldn’t be involved in this one because I’d been involved in the one previously.
“So that was fair enough. But I don’t expect to hear from him to be honest. I'll just keep doing what I’m doing.
“But as I say, recently my form’s been better, it’s picked up, scoring goals again so that’s all I can do.
“I say it all the time, but national teams take care of themselves when they come around. “
His two strikes in Lanarkshire were his ninth and tenth goals of the season as the Tynecastle side moved into fourth place in the Scottish Premiership.
And the forward feels that the Edinburgh club are starting to move in the right direction after a tough period.
“It's a big result,” he continued. “Obviously, we came here last year, I think they won maybe one out of two.
“Motherwell have always performed well against us, so we knew it was going to be tough, but I thought we performed really well today.
“Solid away performance and overall, I think we deserved to win. I think coming into the game we knew how big it was and to come here and get a result would be the best statement for the ups and downs we’ve had this season so far.
“I think that’s probably been the biggest thing, it has been so up and down, there hasn't been any real consistency winning or losing.
“It’s been indifferent so it can sometimes cause frustrations among people, and I understand that.
“But the main thing was coming here and getting the win ahead of the international break.”
With Hearts now in the European places the former Ayr and Dundee United striker feels the team have a good platform to go on build after the international break.
And Shankland was keen to lavish praise on his team-mates in defence after they managed to see the game out against Stuart Kettlewell’s men despite a late penalty from Blair Spittal.
“I can’t see ahead now but I think that was a solid performance, I think at times we performed really well,” he said.
“Of course, we came under a bit of pressure in the second half when Motherwell throw full bodies forward.
“Then we give away the penalty that puts us under a bit of pressure, but I think we stood up to it.
“In recent weeks we’ve conceded goals quite quickly, but we made that point that it wouldn’t happen again.
“To be fair, the boys at the back, the back three stood up to it really well and the team defended really well when it was asked.”
After netting 28 times in all competitions last season Shankland admits he struggled to kick on at the beginning of this campaign.
However, he feels he has improved in recent weeks and was delighted with the variety of his goals at Fir Park.
“My form has turned a bit since the start of the season,” he added. The goals weren’t as free-flowing.
“My general play wasn’t as good as it could have been. But after the last international break, I had some time off and came back and played really well.
“Overall performances have been good, I’ve been happy with them. Frankie’s [Kent] just headed it down and I just managed to get a flick on it, sneak it in by the post and the second one is a good ball from Beni [Baningime].
“But I’ve got 25 yards to run at the goal and you think 'do I chip him [Liam Kelly], go round him' but thankfully enough I managed to go round him and beat the guy that was running back as well.”
