I never find writing this easy when Caley Thistle have lost and today is no different.
In such circumstances I am usually looking for some crumb of comfort as the team moves forward to its next game but it has been hard to do that on this occasion after seeing Inverness so outplayed on Saturday. In no way did the scoreline flatter Dundee United.
The wages they will be paying while running up multi-million-pound losses will be much higher than Inverness and the old adage that you get what you pay for is often true.
That was certainly the way it looked on Saturday.
But while United will be pleased with the way they played, Inverness will feel they could have done better.
Too often this did not look like two teams in the top half of the same league going head to head. For much of the game there was a real gulf and I was struggling to understand how the Tangerines were recently beaten 4-0 at Queen of the South.
The manager pointed out after the game that at 1-0 down James Keatings had chances to equalise and that was certainly true. However, even if he had managed to convert one of those chances United looked, to me, like they had enough about them to up their game and get their noses back in front again.
A disappointing afternoon but there is no shame in getting beaten by a better team.