Laidlaw admits County afforded league leaders too much respect
ROSS LAIDLAW was under no illusions as to how difficult a task Ross County would face when Celtic came to town.
The Dingwall keeper knew he would have to be on top form – as well as his team-mates – to achieve a result against the league leaders.
While an upset was not achieved, Ross County applied themselves excellently and dominated spells of the second-half proceedings before Jota’s late finish sealed the match.
Laidlaw himself was called into action to make two terrific stops in the first-half – one coming after spilling Matt O’Riley’s speculative effort, only to spring across goal to deny Kyogo Furuhashi a tap-in.
“You need your goalkeeper to make saves when you are playing against Celtic,” said Laidlaw. “To be fair, in the second half, I didn’t have that much to do. But I had some in the first half.
“I was disappointed I made a mistake for that [Matt O’Riley] one, but I managed to get up and, thankfully, I saved from Kyogo.
“We knew it was going to be hard as Celtic are in top form in the league and you can see they are a really good football team with the way they played.
“I think we probably gave Celtic too much respect in the first half and they had a few chances.
“Second half, we limited them to very few and you could see we were trying to get a goal, but it wasn’t to be.”
County were not beaten into submission by Celtic, rather
undone by moments of quality from the Parkhead side.
Quizzed on what it is that makes Celtic so difficult to play against Laidlaw pinpointed the fluidity throughout Ange Postecoglou’s side.
He said: “It’s their rotations. It’s so hard to deal with when their full-backs come in and their movement is so difficult with the pace they have as well. They are a top, top team.
“They stuck to the philosophy that Ange has brought in. They play out from the back and trust what they are doing. You can see they are a good team and stuck to what the manager is telling them to do.
“They are a totally different team from last year and they have confidence with a great squad.
“We didn’t get that chance we were hoping for and were disappointed to concede the second.”
There’s no shame in the result for Laidlaw and Co who have gone from relegation candidates after a dreadful 10-match unbeaten run at the start of the season to European hopefuls.
Malky Mackay’s men have transformed their season, first clinching a top-half finish and now plotting a sensational European qualification spot.
“We won’t be disheartened by the result,” said Laidlaw. “We know we have a big game against Hearts. There’s four games to go and we just need to keep pushing. It’s between us, Dundee United and Motherwell.
“There are two teams who can get into Europe and we are hoping we could be one of them.
“Where we were at the start of the season when we hadn’t won in 10 games, the turnaround has been unbelievable.
“The stats after those 10 games show we are just behind Celtic and Rangers, so, hopefully, we can keep it going.”
Much of the credit for the monumental turnaround has to go to boss Mackay, who has held an unwavering faith in his side even amid their dire run.
And Laidlaw reckons the manager has to be in consideration for manager of the year – not only for the league position, but also the style of play he’s brought to Dingwall.
Laidlaw said: “I think so. I think he’s up there. There are a few contenders, Robbie Neilson and Ange as well. But definitely.
“He’s come in and got us playing some good stuff which is easy on the eye.”