There was a slight element of doubt in my mind about how well Caley Thistle had played against Cove Rangers last week.
Yes, they had scored six, and that doesn’t happen very often, but Cove lost their way completely that afternoon and Jim McIntyre paid the price.
New manager Paul Hartley will be under no illusions about the task that lies ahead after his new team lost very heavily again on Saturday against Queen’s Park.
This season is proving more of a challenge for Arbroath but they had to be going into Saturday’s game feeling pretty good about themselves after winning at Dens Park.
With Inverness having a pretty patchy record at Gayfield in recent years the eventual outcome was far from clear in my mind as the game kicked off.
Yet you have to say that once again Caley Thistle won with something to spare.
I said recently that the games against the Red Lichties and Cove could completely derail our season and Billy Dodds’ time here as manager.
There will be fans who continue to be cynical about the manager but I can’t ignore that under a bit of pressure his team has taken six points in these two games and scored 10 goals in the process.
So, a good start to 2023 but things will get more challenging with two games on consecutive Saturdays against Queen’s Park in the Championship and Scottish Cup.
I will be really interested to see how Caley Thistle get on against the in-form Spiders.
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