Billy Dodds is urging Caley Thistle to produce a heroic performance in order to sink Premiership Motherwell in the Premier Sports Cup on Wednesday.
The Inverness boss takes his Championship side to Fir Park to lock horns with the Steel Men, who have shown a mini-revival since Steven Hammell recently took over as the boss.
Hammell’s players won his first two games in charge, against Aberdeen and Livingston, before being edged out 2-1 at Kilmarnock at the weekend.
ICT’s unbeaten start to the season has been halted by back-to-back league losses against Partick Thistle and Morton, which has seen them tumble down the division.
However, for the first time in six years, ICT sailed through group stages without a loss, including a thrilling 2-1 win at top-flight Livingston last month.
Current first-team coach Barry Wilson famously crashed home a long-range winner for ICT in 2003/04 to win a Scottish Cup tie at Fir Park.
To have one of the current crop deliver to goal out of nowhere in this second-round encounter would be welcome for the Highlanders.
ICT can rise to top-flight challenge
However, for Dodds, an overall strong display from his players may be the best way to cause an upset in Lanarkshire.
He said: “We have plenty of players who can be heroes. We have many good technical players and I would love one of them to stand up and do something special.
“We are capable, but overall I want it to be a team performance. We have been off it in the last two weeks and we’re not hiding away from that.
“What I saw in training on Tuesday gives me a lot of confidence. We have proved it by winning at Livingston, but when we play well, we can get results against Premiership teams.
“If you look at our comeback in the first leg against St Johnstone last season. We were not great in the first half, which was my fault, but then in the first half of the second game, we were excellent.
“Against Premiership opponents, we’re more than capable and I’m expecting a big performance on Wednesday.”
Players picked levels up at training
And Dodds explained after a quiet start to the week, following the Morton defeat, his players were back in full-flight and ready to tackle Motherwell.
He added: “On Monday, they were a wee bit quiet because they realised they’d maybe let the Thistle result affect them more than it should have, then we lost the Morton game.
“By Tuesday, they were flying again, which is a good sign for me. I told them ‘that was a proper training session’.
🎟️ Tickets are on sale for Wednesday's Premier Sports Cup Last 16 tie against Motherwell
🚌 The ICT Supporters Travel Club Bus leaves the Caledonian Stadium at 3pm on Wednesday
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— Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC (@ICTFC) August 29, 2022
“That is what I want every time and most times I get that, but it is human nature that on Monday, after a bad result, ‘the manager won’t be happy’, but we had to pick them up again.
“I am a glass half-full kind of person. Half glass empty isn’t going to get you anywhere. I know what’s within the players as well.
“If I had a struggling group where I thought there was no way back then I would be downbeat, but I know it’s there and it’s just about when you can get it out of them.”
Striker Samuels suffers injury blow
One blow for the Caley Jags is striker Austin Samuels, who has three goals this season, will miss up to three weeks with a groin injury after coming off in the first half against Morton at the weekend.
Dodds said: “Austin has been excellent. He is a young boy progressing and learning the game in a couple of positions, whether it is as a striker or a winger.
“He’s learning where to be positionally when out of possession. Some people need to work at that and Austin is one of them, but he is working his socks off to learn.
“He looked lively to start with on Saturday then we lost him, which was another blow.
“We will just get on with it and believe in the players we’ve got, and I do.”
The ICT manager, however, ruled out making any 11th-hour transfer market moves in a bid to fill the void of injured players such as Samuels or midfield captain Sean Welsh.
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