Mackay upbeat despite lack of cutting edge
THERE are still four days to go before the first anniversary of Ross County’s maiden league victory of last season.
That’s just one of the reasons why Malky Mackay won’t be reaching for the panic button at the bottom of the Premiership.
The County manager may well conduct quite an inquest on Tuesday morning into the concession of the winning goal, given he spotted five occasions where his players could have taken a preventative measure.
However, he was pleased with much of what he saw as another Ross County rebuild takes shape.
There were the multiple chances either side of half-time that would have spawned at least a leveller if his men had been more clinical — and Zach Hemming less inspired in the Kilmarnock goal.
Mackay said: ‘To finish the way we did in the first half, I was pleased and buoyed. I told them: “Let’s go for the second half”, I then thought we were terrific. We showed real character.
‘To create the number of chances we did, I can’t ask for any more than that.
‘We’ve obviously got to be more clinical. That’s clearly without doubt. Maybe they were taking me too literally because I told them to make the goalkeeper make saves — and he made about five!’
County midfield star Ross Callachan suffered a hamstring injury in the third minute of the game and will require a scan tomorrow to assess the extent of the problem.
Mackay conceded that was a blow but his replacement, Yan Dhanda, was at the heart of much of County’s best moves.
The manager added: ‘Ross is probably my most influential player, so it’s really unfortunate.
‘He’s a terrific boy and terrific player, so with him going off it was a loss. But I thought Yan was terrific and pulled a lot of strings.
‘He could have capped off his performance with a worldie goal. I genuinely can’t be too down and disappointed by my team because of the manner we applied ourselves.’
His players won’t have heard — or seen — the last of Danny Armstrong’s 20th-minute goal.
Mackay said: ‘I have looked at the goal and it’s not good the way we lost it.
‘We gave the ball back three times then unfortunately, my goalkeeper, who’s been terrific for me, slipped.
‘He still gets up and nearly gets to it. It’s one of those we’ll look at on Tuesday and five different people will be told: “If you did something different there, that’s not a goal”.
‘Killie then definitely came into it and that’s when we were under the cosh for a period.
‘I thought we dug our way back out of that again for the last 10 or 15 minutes of the first half and had the three chances.’