Caley Thistle defender Carl Tremarco is determined to make sure history does not repeat itself as the Highlanders bid to avoid another heavy defeat by Dundee United following Sunday’s 6-0 loss at Celtic.
Inverness were defeated 5-0 by Celtic in Glasgow on March 1 and were then beaten by five clear goals by United in the Scottish Cup quarter-final at Caledonian Stadium eight days later.
Tremarco, who signed a new two-year contract extension with Caley Jags in January, intends to make up for the Hoops humbling when the Tayside men head north on Saturday.
The 28-year-old said: “We are not naive, we know Europe is going to be difficult now.
“We look to win every game, we did not go to Celtic to sit back and nick a draw. We wanted to come out and express ourselves and make a bit of a statement.
“Hopefully, we can finish the season on a roll in the next three games and look forward to next season.
“As it panned out Celtic beat us by five and Dundee United did the same. It is strange how it works out but we need to bounce back.
“We can’t put in another performance like we did at home against Dundee United the last time. We owe the supporters a better performance, especially after what happened at Celtic.”
Tremarco wants to quickly forget about the weekend six-goal defeat.
He added: “The players were disappointed. We know Celtic can do that to anyone in the league on their day and, unfortunately, they have done it twice to us this season.
“We gave the ball away at times and we were punished as Celtic have real quality.
“I am not sure other teams punish us as much if we give the ball away.
“We can try to do our best and defend for our lives and kick the ball long but it would just keep coming back. We tried to keep the ball down and pass it.
“In the first half I thought we started off very well, we passed the ball and everything looked good. We gave away sloppy goals which killed the game for us.
“It hurts but we will learn from it. We are disappointed but all we can do is put it to the back of our minds and focus on the next three games.”