Goalkeeper Mark Ridgers reckons Caley Thistle have every reason to believe they can cause a Premier Sports Cup upset at Premiership Motherwell.
Despite losing back-to-back Championship games against Partick Thistle and Morton, the Inverness number one sees no reason why they cannot pull off a result few might predict.
ICT progressed out of the group stages of the League Cup last month for the first time in six years, scoring an impressive 2-1 victory at top-flight Livingston on the way to winning their section.
They travel to Fir Park on Wednesday to face a Well side lifted since the recent appointment of Steven Hammell as manager, who won his first two fixtures.
He tasted his first reversal at the weekend as the Steelmen saw a 1-0 lead turn into a 2-1 defeat at Derek McInnes’ Kilmarnock.
Inverness, who lost to a late Grant Gillespie spot-kick against Morton, are keen to rise to the challenge against Motherwell before returning to league duty at Raith Rovers this Saturday.
Cup-tie is one for Caley Jags to relish
Ridgers accepts successive defeats are blows, but he backs ICT to provide their own lift in Lanarkshire.
He said: “Motherwell got a bit of bounce since the new manager took over.
“These are the games our boys relish, going in against Premiership opponents.
“Motherwell will expect to win the game, but we’re confident enough to go and get a result.
“The last two results are not great, but that doesn’t make us a bad team.
“We just need to get our confidence back, starting on Monday morning.
“We’re far from rock-bottom in terms of confidence. It’s just been knocked a little bit.
“We’re good enough to go and put a show on at Fir Park. Fingers crossed, you never know, we might just get the result to take us into the next round.”
Inverness didn’t test Morton enough
Morton’s 1-0 victory knocked ICT down to eighth in the table, following Wallace Duffy’s 85th-minute handball leading to the clinching spot-kick.
Ridgers feels the young ICT lads can learn from how they lost at the weekend, especially when playing at home in the league.
He said: “It looked like it was finishing 0-0. We just didn’t do enough to test their goalkeeper, apart from one save in the second half.
“Teams come here and sit back and, over the course of the game, we huffed and puffed and didn’t look as if we were going to do anything.
“You’re trying to play good football, but Morton were waiting for us to make a mistake or bad pass and break on us.
“It is something we need to learn quickly. I don’t think you can play pretty football at the time in this league.
“There has to be a side where you have to be more ruthless and get the ball forward more to win throw-ins and free-kicks, just like they did.
“They got it in the box and got their penalty.
“We’re disappointed, but it’s still early days, there’s a long way to go.”
Saves looked like earning hosts draw
And 32-year-old shot-stopper Ridgers hopes the weekend’s setback can lead to a week of positive results in cup and league on their travels.
He added: “When games are going the way they did on Saturday, you have to just ensure you don’t lose it.
“Bar the penalty, there was nothing in the game. That’s the disappointing thing. We’ve lost it when we could have at least taken a point from it.
“We will regroup. We have the game on Wednesday where we want to get into the next round of the League Cup.
“There will be blips in the Championship and we know we’re good enough. Last season, our blip was through the middle section, hopefully we’ve had ours now and we can it right on Saturday in terms of the league.
“However, our focus now is fully on Wednesday and trying to get into the next round of the cup.”
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