Vigurs frustrated as Staggies shoot themselves in foot

THE one thing 300 Ross County fans couldn’t do on Saturday was suck the ball into the net. Stuart Kettlewell’s side made chance after chance against champions Celtic. Iain Vigurs and Oli Shaw hit the woodwork with free-kicks. Ross Stewart (twice) and Ross Draper were denied by Greek goalkeeper Vasilis Barkas. By the end of a harsh 90 minutes, the supporters who felt lucky to win a golden ticket back to the football must have felt cursed. ‘It was good to come out to fans again and hear applause when the teams kicked off,’ said skipper Vigurs (right). ‘In some ways, it was a little bit strange because we haven’t had that this season yet. ‘It was welcome and, hopefully, everyone was happy with it and we can get a step closer to bringing more fans back soon. ‘The sooner the fans are back, the better because everyone knows how important they are to the game. ‘But playing Celtic is hard from the first minute and, for me, we didn’t help ourselves by not taking our chances and giving away goals. ‘It was a frustrating day because we had good chances and didn’t take them. ‘This has happened a few times, where we have created against them but still ended up on the end of three, four and now five-nil defeats. ‘When you play Celtic, you have to take whatever you create and, in the first half especially, we should have had a goal or two. ‘We hit the post a couple of times, the keeper has made a great save from Ross Stewart and we had a few more. ‘But we didn’t have that killer instinct in front of goal — and we paid the price for that.’ When a failure to score is combined with an inability to keep out the other team, 5-0 defeats are the inevitable result. Describing the goals Celtic scored as ‘gifts’, a frustrated Vigurs added: ‘We were sloppy and I have to hold my hand up for the fifth one, too. ‘It doesn’t matter if it’s 0-0 or 4-0, you can’t get sloppy like that because every one counts. ‘So we know we have to eradicate the sloppiness. ‘In spells, we played some good stuff and dominated the ball for long spells against a very good Celtic side. ‘But we didn’t take our chances — and they punished us by taking theirs.’