Caley Thistle manager Terry Butcher has every faith in the ability of his players to bounce back from a thrashing at St Johnstone.
The former England captain was left down but not disheartened after Inverness tumbled to a 4-0 defeat in Perth but is confident his team can recover to get back to the top of the Scottish Premiership.
Caley Jags led the league, against all the odds, up until last weekend’s defeat but they are still second in the table behind reigning champions Celtic.
After suffering just two losses, including a 1-0 reverse at Aberdeen, all campaign, Butcher is far from downbeat and is already looking ahead to the match against Partick Thistle on Sunday, October 20, at Caledonian Stadium.
He said: “It has been a great season for us if you take the St Johnstone game out of it. Sometimes a defeat can do you more good than harm, although I did not enjoy watching it at McDiarmid Park.
“It was a slap in the face but we will take it and move on. To keep Celtic off the top of the table for so long was no mean feat.
“We enjoyed being top of the table, we were second and third for long periods last season as well. We did not reach the standards we set at St Johnstone and we have to get back to that.”
Butcher has nothing but praise for his players who are among the lowest earners in the top flight.
He said: “Our players are on a fraction of the wages that some of the players at the bigger clubs are.
“There is a massive disparity between our budget and the money we pay our players and other clubs.
“I am not concerned about that. I want to get as much as I can from my players, they certainly give me that. It does not matter what wages we pay, it is about football and what they give us. I cannot fault them in any way.
“I got a message from Steve Lomas at Millwall a few weeks ago to congratulate us on how well we were doing.
“It is nice and I think people do notice us and see what we are doing. There is a real honesty among the players in our team and the Scottish Premiership is thriving as a whole.”