Happy Deas
5 clean sheets out of 6 and in title hunt..
ROBBIE DEAS is convinced Caley Thistle’s defensive record will be planting seeds of doubt in the minds of opposition strikers.
The Highlanders have conceded only once in the league with five clean sheets from six taking them into early title contention.
The Caledonian Stadium is buzzing with belief and intent despite dropping their first points last weekend at Dunfermline.
Former Celtic youth Deas, who is loving every minute of it, said: “We all take massive pride in the clean sheets.
“The fact we’ve done so well at the start of the season is something to build on.
“We’ve set that standard now and we can’t be dropping it.
“A massive thing for us is we have the players on the bench more than capable of stepping in if called upon.
“It’s a tight-knit squad this year and we all get on like a house on fire and that’s what winning teams are built upon.
“It starts from the front, looking at the effort Shane Sutherland and Manny Duku have been putting in.
“Clean sheets can win you games as we’ve seen with a couple of 1-0 victories this season.
“It also puts a seed of doubt in the opposition attackers.
“We are a hard team to break down and teams will be coming here knowing they have to put on a bit of a show and attack us with a bit of freedom.
“Queens have a really young squad. I know quite a few of the boys and they have some very good players.
“It is never an easy game.
They came up here last year and took three points off us.
“They have good, young players who are hungry, but we’ll be up for the challenge.”
Queen of the South boss Allan Johnston insists only a ‘top performance’ can fire his side to victory this afternoon.
The Doonhamers head north on the back of a 2-0 defeat to 10-man Arbroath last weekend and Johnston said: “Inverness are flying just now, they are doing really well at the moment and have made a near perfect start. It is a really tough league because there are a lot of good teams and a lot of good players.
“We have shown this year that we are more than a match for all the teams in this division and we need to go there with belief.
“There are absolutely no easy games in the Championship at all, so we will need to put in a top performance to get something from the game.”