Jim McIntyre: League Cup win needed for confidence

JIM MCINTYRE hopes back-to-back home games will see Ross County find some much-needed confidence following a wretched start to the season for the Highlanders.
McIntyre watches his County side lose to Aberdeen on Saturday. Picture: SNSMcIntyre watches his County side lose to Aberdeen on Saturday. Picture: SNS
McIntyre watches his County side lose to Aberdeen on Saturday. Picture: SNS

The Staggies boss is still looking for his first win since taking over from Derek Adams earlier in the month after County had lost their first five Premiership games to languish at the bottom of the table.

So far McIntyre has failed to arrest the slide with a 2-1 home defeat to Motherwell followed by a 3-0 loss at Aberdeen on Saturday.

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The former Queen of the South boss is preparing for the visit of struggling Championship side Hibernian in the League Cup third-round on Tuesday night before Dundee visit on Premiership duty at the weekend and is looking for his side to emerge from them in better shape.

McIntyre said: “We have two home games on the trot and we want to win both and give us that confidence that the team needs.

“Hibs will be looking to bounce back from their defeat at the weekend at my old club.

“They have got good players and we have had them watched.

“But we are the home team and it is up to us to go to take the game to them and get into the next round.

“It is very important. Every club loves a cup run.

“But all we will look at is getting into the next round.”

McIntyre will try to take some positives from what he admitted was a deserved defeat by the Dons.

He said: “Aberdeen are a top side, what they have done in the last years is build a very competitive squad with a good mix of experience and youth, they play with a good tempo and that is what we will aspire to.

“We knew it was going to be difficult and it got all the more difficult with the type of goals we gave away.

“But we still created goal scoring opportunities ourselves and could have scored two or three although Aberdeen deserved to win the game, they could have scored more themselves.”

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Defender Scott Boyd is out of Ross County’s League Cup third-round clash with Hibernian on Tuesday night with a dead leg sustained in the 3-0 Premiership defeat at Aberdeen on Saturday.

McIntyre has a couple of other injury concerns but will assess them on the day of the game. Uros Celcer missed the trip to Pittodrie with a hamstring injury and Steven Saunders is still dealing with an ankle complaint, but Tim Dreesen is close to returning after recovering from a back injury.

Provisional squad: Reguero, Frempah, Fenlon, Balk, Dreesen, Carey, Kiss, De Leeuw, Quinn, Brittain, Maatsen, Cardle, Dreesen, Jervis, Boyce, Latouchent, Arquin, Gardyne, Irvine, Barr, Brown.