County must show a fearless streak, declares Tremarco

CARL TREMARCO has warned that Ross County will be done for if they fail to confront Celtic head on at the Global Energy Stadium tonight.

The Staggies defender, 35, also emphasised that time is of the essence as his team strive to establish an acceptable level of consistency in their quest to pull away from the bottom of the Premiership.

Fear is the key in the fight for survival and Tremarco stressed: ‘You have to embrace playing the big teams, not be fearful of them. It’s just 11 versus 11. Player-wise, they are probably of a higher standard in terms of ability, but they run around the pitch and tackle like we do, so there’s no reason to fear them.

‘Celtic have run into a bit of form but anything can happen on the day. As long as we are resolute and hard to beat, I do believe we will create chances and it’s up to us to stick one of them away.

‘What we do will be massive. We’ve got to try to exert ourselves on the game, otherwise, what’s the point of turning up?

‘We know we’ll create chances but, at the minute, it’s about keeping the back door shut. It’s all well and good defending for so long but when you do get that chance, you don’t want end up looking back on it with regret.

‘You must stay focused and have the wherewithal to attack at the right times.

‘You can’t just expect to defend all the time and draw 0-0. Your mindset needs to be to take the game to them, but with a good balance.

‘There’s no point going gung-ho trying to score and then leave gaps. It’s got to have a structure to it.

‘We need to be disciplined in attack, and especially in defence. We must be really switched on, because Celtic can be devastating on the break.

‘We have no illusions about the size of our task. But we have beaten them before and there’s no reason why we can’t do that again. On our day, we can beat anyone. It’s lack of consistency that’s killing us.

‘We get a good result and then don’t follow up with another one, so we need to start putting a string of results together.

‘If we did get a result against Celtic, then hopefully we can build a bit of confidence from that.’

Tremarco (pictured) is hoping Neil Lennon’s side fall into the trap of underestimating their opponents as a result of County’s erratic form.

Recalling their wins away to Hibs and at home to Aberdeen in the wake of Inverness Caley Thistle legend John Hughes replacing Stuart Kettlewell as manager, Tremarco reflected: ‘I think they perhaps underestimated us in those games.

‘Maybe they expected to dominate and probably underestimated how we would play a certain way since the gaffer came in.

‘Easter Road in December (a 2-0 win over Hibs) was probably our best performance of the season, in terms of playing football through them and limiting them to very few opportunities.

‘Aberdeen (County won 4-1 last month) probably also expected to steamroller us but we matched them to an extent and caught them by surprise.’

Tremarco, along with Ross Draper, Iain Vigurs and Billy Mckay, is one of four former Inverness Caley players once again playing under Hughes, but nothing has changed in the intervening period.

‘The gaffer is still crazy, a lunatic,’ declared the tongue-incheek Tremarco. ‘But it’s good to be working with him again.

‘He opened my eyes to a whole new way to play the game when he came to Inverness and it was refreshing.

‘But while he needs time to embed here, what he wants right now — and what we really need — are results.’