No excuses for off-colour display from the Staggies
Ross County co- manager Steven Ferguson refused to use the Staggies’ nightmare preparation as a factor in the 4-0 loss to Livingston.
Ten players had been struck down by an outbreak of the winter sickness bug in midweek.
In the end, the Highland side were forced into three changes to the team that beat Kilmarnock a week earlier. But those who did play delivered a toothless performance as County fell to eighth place in the Premiership. Ferguson said: “It was a tough afternoon for us. It was certainly not what we were wanting.
“We weren’t good enough, we didn’t compete enough.
“It’s the end of what has been a difficult week, and we’ll just need to take this one on the chin, I’m afraid.
“In our last two games we did really well, we got our confidence back up and were looking like the team we know we can be.
“We were expecting a bit more of that today and it didn’t happen, so we’ll look at the reasons for that and correct them for the next game.
“We’re not going to use the sickness bug as an excuse.
“It was a difficult week, we haven’t trained, and the boys were kept away from the pitch so we could try to compete today.
“We felt we had enough to come and do that so you’ll certainly not get Stuart or I using the week we had an excuse.
“Livingston took full advantage of us not being on our game today.
“At the same time we felt the goals we conceded were exceptionally cheap, we knew what was coming, it’s no surprise how Livingston play.
“We should have been able to deal with it better and we didn’t.” Ferguson and Kettelwell will now have to pick the players up physically and mentally for the Boxing Day visit of Motherwell.
He added: “The boys are suffering but we won’t let them feel sorry for themselves.
“Nobody is going to feel sorry for us so we’re not going to feel sorry for ourselves. “We need to dust ourselves down and make sure we are ready for the game when it comes around.”