By Barry Anderson

Copyright scotsman

Four months since waking up in pain with a mystery neck injury, Craig Gordon is ready to return to action. He is back in full training with Hearts and eager to reclaim the goalkeeping position which almost exclusively his last season. Even at 42 and with several experienced rivals in the Tynecastle squad, Gordon is not fazed by the level of competition. Newly-recruited German keeper Alexander Schwolow enjoyed a Hearts debut in Saturday’s 2-0 win over Rangers at Ibrox. He is likely to keep that position for the foreseeable future, with Zander Clark relegated from first choice to substitute after an erratic start to the season. Ryan Fulton is injured, as is young Liam McFarlane, with Harry Stone also part of the first-team squad. Gordon’s emergence from the injury list further strengthens the fight for game time. “It’s going really well. I’m back in full training now. It’s been tough but it’s nice to be back involved with the rest of the boys,” he told the official Hearts website. “There are certainly a fair few goalies in the squad. It’s good in training to share that workload with the rest of the guys. It’s quite an interesting situation with how all those guys are going to fit into a squad because only one of us can play. There are going to be a number of goalies unhappy. We have to work hard in training, do as much as we can to try and get ourselves in the team, and then when we’re there try to take that opportunity to stay there. Hearts sit joint-top of the league after four wins and a draw from their opening five Premiership games. Gordon’s aim is clear as he tried to convince head coach Derek McInnes that he can be No.1 again. “Keep training well and try to get in the manager’s thoughts to get a start. That’s all I can do – keep doing everything I possibly can to show I’m the one the manager should be picking. That goes for all for all of us. It’s going to be good competition and we’ll see how it goes,” he said. “We are sitting in an excellent position. Winning games at the end always creates a good feeling. We are in a good place and we have to try to keep that going. The [transfer] window is shut, we now know everybody is here and it’s a case of getting on with the season now to try and get as many points as we possibly can before the next international break. It’s full focus on that to try and stay up the top end of the league.” There was no obvious reason for the discomfort Gordon felt waking up on the morning of 10 May. He then spent a frustrating summer fighting to regain fitness. “I woke up in a bit of pain,” he recalled. “I’d slipped one or maybe two discs in my neck. I came in and saw the physios and it wasn’t great news. I had to go for a scan and that confirmed I was going to miss a number of months. Then it was a case of getting on the rehab trail and I’m well used to that. It was a case of getting my head down and working as hard as I could. “It’s been a difficult one to rehab with the nerve damage it caused and the knock-on effects of that. It’s been quite a complex rehab, a difficult one to get on top of. I’m feeling good now. I’ve worked really hard with the sports science department to get back and get ready for the season.” Last week brought a return to action in a bounce game against Dunfermline. Gordon played 45 minutes and felt the benefit. “I had a save within 30 seconds of coming on, so that was nice just to get back into the swing of things straight away,” he remarked. “I had a couple of decent saves in the game, which is nice for the confidence to get back out there and show that I could still do it. Yeah, it felt good to be back playing, even though it was a bounce game. You still feel those nerves before the start, especially after being out for so long. “You train for these events because it’s never quite the same in training compared to what you do in a game. Training, more often than not, is more intense than a game. It’s in those moments when you have to deliver. You might only get one or two in a game and you have to be ready. In training, you can make save after save and do drills in the flow of a session, but in a game you just have to be able to do it at any given second. That’s the slight difference and something you have to get used to.” Long-term, there is still a desire to regain a place in the Scotland squad bidding to reach next summer’s World Cup finals in USA, Canada and Mexico. That is still some way off, though. Club action is the immediate priority. “Yeah, absolutely. We made a good start with four points from the first two qualifiers so we put ourselves in a good position. I’d love to be back involved with that team, but firstly I need to make sure I’m doing well here and training well to give myself that opportunity to be selected,” said Gordon. The number of experienced keepers at Riccarton gives younger goalies like 20-year-old McFarlane and 16-year-old Jack Lyon plenty experts to call upon. There is a desire to pass on as much information as possible. “Yes, as much as we can,” said Gordon. “We sometimes train together, sometimes they are with the B team. When we do train together it’s always nice to chat to them and make sure we are helping them as much as we can. These guys are the future and they have a really good chance. It’s nice to help them along the way. If they’ve got any questions, they can bounce them off any one of us because there are a number of experienced goalkeepers here. “It’s a demanding position to play, goalkeeper for Hearts, but they are developing really well. It’s up to us to continue that and make sure they come through the age-groups and come into the first team ready to be involved in that environment. They are all showing very good signs of being able to do that.” Schwolow is one of 11 new recruits at Hearts and Gordon feels they are all settling in nicely. “It’s been very good. It’s slightly challenging with the number of players but you can see with how everybody celebrates the wins and makes sure we are all together in these matches, how we have won games at the death and how everybody has come together to celebrate them, you can see the spirit that has emerged here. Even with the number of new players, everything has gelled quite quickly in terms of the dressing room. That’s going to be a big part for us going forward.” READ MORE: Exclusive inside story of Rangers 0-2 Hearts – the couch plan and the stirring team talk