Too many draws may drop Caley right in mix 1 1
ALLOA .............. INVERNESS ....... JOHN DOCHERTY AT THE INDODRILL
MARK RIDGERS says Caley Thistle must ditch the draws to avoid a drop scrap.
Saturday’s hard-fought contest was the club’s eighth league stalemate, leaving them seven points off fourth with two games in hand.
But keeper Ridgers knows his team are only six points ahead of battling Alloa at the foot of the table.
Inverness have a crunch home clash with Morton tomorrow and Ridgers said: “Every time we play Alloa it’s really difficult. The way they play, the way we play, it’s always an open game.
“It’s difficult to take – another draw. We need to start winning games now.
“If we don’t start winning, give away the goals we do and don’t score, we find ourselves in a dogfight at the bottom. We have to avoid that.
“We have to step up and in the next 10 games try to get as many points as possible to get to where we want to go.
“It’s still there for us and we have a couple of games in hand. But we are giving away really cheap goals and losing ground on everyone.
“If you don’t score goals and give away the goals we have been doing recently, you are going to be in big trouble.
“The frustrating thing is you look at the dressing room and see the quality we do have. This was our eighth draw and to be where we are so far is not good enough.
“That’s two points we have picked up against Alloa – you could say it’s our bogey team.
“But it’s also the other games as well when we have chucked away points and let ourselves down.”
Innes Cameron gave Alloa a 17th-minute lead but Nikolay Todorov levelled after Ridgers did well to prevent Alan Trouten – sent off in injury time over an off-theball incident – making it 2-0.
BRIGHTON .......... LEICESTER ..........
KELECHI IHEANACHO admits it took the half-time hair dryer treatment for his Leicester side to snatch three massive points at the Amex.
After a woeful opening 45 minutes, it seemed like a familiar story for the Foxes, who slid out of the top four after lockdown last season and arrived on the South Coast struggling with injuries and form.
Brighton could and should have been leading by more than Adam Lallana’s strike.
But a dressing-room dressing down and secondhalf goals from Iheanacho and Daniel Amartey saw Leicester return to winning ways in pursuit of a Champions League place.
Gaffer Brendan Rodgers called it an “important win” with midfielder Youri Tielemans adding: “It feels like a very big result.”
But striker Iheanacho revealed how angry the boss had been at the break.
The striker said: “He said we had no aggression, that we were poor, that Brighton wanted it more and we had to come back in the second half.
“We came back and were aggressive and we got back into the game. We had hunger and we did the job.
“We are confident. We have injuries but we have players who can do the job, so we just need to keep our heads up and be hungry.”
Brighton boss Graham Potter said: “We’re suffering, it’s as simple as that.”