Ross County manager Jim McIntyre has challenged goalkeeper Antonio Reguero to make amends for his errors in the 4-0 defeat against Aberdeen on Saturday.
The Spaniard was at fault for Adam Rooney’s early opener for the Dons, and also looked suspect when Shay Logan’s shot trickled past him to make it 3-0 on 61 minutes.
The former Caley Thistle goalkeeper has played 14 games this season, one more than rival Mark Brown, and has been first choice since returing to the team in the 2-2 draw against Motherwell in December.
McIntyre has been impressed with the bulk of Reguero’s performances, and is confident the 32-year-old can bounce back if selected in Saturday’s crucial match against the Steelmen on Saturday.
McIntyre said: “The goals we gave away were really poor. Unfortunately when a goalkeeper makes a mistake, it results in a goal nine times out of 10.
“But Tony’s done well for us in the spell since he’s been back in the team and made important saves at important times.
“Saturday wasn’t his day – simple as that – and it was hard to recover from that.
“There was nothing in the game in the first half apart from the mistake.
“He has been very disappointed the first couple of days back. That’s natural because he’s a very good professional. He was hurting, but we were all hurting. It’s our job to pick him back up.
“Tony’s not a kid, he’s been in the game a while now. He’ll have made mistakes before, and it’s about how he bounces back. He’s got to be strong and he’ll certainly get backing from the staff and players.”
The Staggies are six points adrift at the bottom of the Premiership, but have the chance to close the gap to three points by beating Motherwell on Saturday.
McIntyre knows the importance of the game, and despite confidence being low warned his players cannot afford to dwell on a miserable run of 12 games without a win.
McIntyre added: “It was one of those days for us against Aberdeen but it’s consigned to the waste bucket. What we’ve got coming up is too important.
“If we’re going to do it, it’s now or never. We’ve got to now look at the run of games to get points on board. We’ve not got any time to feel sorry for ourselves. It’s not something I would allow anyway, and it’s time to kick on.
“We’ve just finished playing against the leading three teams in the league, so it’s been a tough period. We had a decent performance against Celtic, when we were unlucky with the deflected goal.
“Against Caley Thistle we played well, but when we make mistakes as we did against Aberdeen on Saturday it’s always going to be a tough ask.”