Darren Fletcher highlighted the similarities between Scotland's recent defeats to England and Slovakia as their World Cup qualification hopes took another hit.

Goals from Daniel Sturridge, Adam Lallana and Gary Cahill gave England a comfortable 3-0 win despite an at times encouraging display from the Dark Blues at Wembley.

Scotland are now slumped second bottom of Group F with just four points after four games, dealing another blow to their chances of making it to the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

Fletcher saw similarities in the way Scotland folded in 3-0 defeats to both Slovakia and England, urging critics to look at the performance rather than the result.

"The game wasn't a 3-0 to England and that's disappointing," he said. "We had just as many chances, if not more.

"The difference was when they came along England took theirs. We came here with great belief and had a right good go and it's hard sitting in there after a result like that that we didn't deserve.

"England were clinical. I think they scored with their first chance of the game. It was the same in the second half, we came out really positive and have a couple of great chances and then England go up the park and it's 2-0."

"It's almost very similar to Slovakia in that we feel like we're doing well in the game, things are working and then we're getting punished.

"If you look back over those two games the teams have probably had six or seven chances and they seem to have scored every time. It's disappointing but we've got to look to improve."

The West Brom midfielder refused to write off Scotland's chances of making it to Russia, though. "There's always a chance," he said. "We've got four home games to come and if we can replicate performances like that we can pick up plenty of points.

"We'll keep believing until it's over. There's still lots of points to pick up in this group. People look at results, but I hope they look at the performance tonight.

"It's not easy to say, but I hope they do. It's difficult because we've lost 3-0 to England at Wembley, but it was never a 3-0 game and we've got to keep the belief."

Gordon Strachan will come under pressure after defeat with his position already under scrutiny before the game, but Fletcher was keen to offer his backing to the under-fire Scotland manager.

"The players are fully behind the manager," he said. "We love working for him, we enjoy being with him, we know how patriotic he is, we know how tactically astute he is and we know how he wants us to play. You saw that tonight."