Mark Ridgers has issued a strong defence of his Caley Thistle team-mates and rejected the notion that players had “chucked it”.
Caley Jags players have come in for criticism during their recent run of form, which has seen them win just twice in 16 games.
The away fans directed chants at head coach Billy Dodds during the first half of the 1-1 draw with Dundee at the weekend, while the players have noticed the criticism directed at them on social media.
Remaining positive
Ridgers admits the club is not where it wants to be in the Championship but some of the assertions made about the players are well wide of the mark.
“We’re not blind to it, we see it on social media,” he said. “If we were playing badly I could understand but in football, you go through spells like that.
“As players, we’re remaining positive and the manager is remaining positive – we believe we can go on to achieve something.
“A lot of what you see (on social media), there seems to be unrest away from the football department. I think some fans maybe need to have a wee look at themselves.
“We’re not where we want to be but being negative, that’s not going to help. If they think it’s such a bad spell, there’s clubs in a lot worse positions than us.
‘You don’t become a bad team overnight’
“As players, we accept where we in the league isn’t good enough. But the other side of it is we’re not giving up. We’re digging in trying to get results.
“The Championship is a difficult league. Look back to last year; Ayr United were struggling a little bit but look at them now.
“You don’t become a bad team overnight. The margins are really small and while we’ve let ourselves down with where we are in the league, we’ve not given up.
“That’s the really annoying thing. There were people that weren’t even at the Hamilton game saying we’d chucked it.
“That’s one thing we’ve definitely not done and you saw that out there on Saturday.”
Caley Thistle fell behind to a first-half penalty from Zach Robinson but a deflected Cameron Harper effort got them a point at Dens Park.
Dodds’ side are seven points adrift of the play-offs with 10 games remaining. They have a big month coming up, starting with Ayr United away this weekend and games against fellow promotion hopefuls Queen’s Park and Partick Thistle.
“We’re not miles away from it,” added Ridgers. “We could be doing with more points on the board but fingers crossed Saturday starts to change things.
“We go to Ayr at the weekend and hopefully put on a performance and get the win we’re desperately trying to get.”
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