Ross County goalkeeper Scott Fox is determined to avoid a failed campaign by securing a top-six place following the Scottish Cup exit at the hands of Aberdeen on Saturday.
County were eliminated at the last-16 stage of the competition when Dons defender Shay Logan secured his side’s place in the quarter-finals with a deflected 87th-minute goal.
The result leaves the Dingwall side focus on the Premiership, and having targeted a top-half finish at the start of the campaign Fox does not want to fall short.
He said: “It was one of those days. We’re disappointed as it was in the cup and we’re out now.
“We need to move on now. We’ve got nine big games coming up now before the split so we’re going to focus on those now and turn our attention towards that.
“The players and management know it can go either way and it is about these games now, and performing the best we can every week to get up that table.
“We said at the start of the season it would be a bigger achievement to finish in the top-six this year than it was last year.
“As players we want to progress, and as a club we want to progress. Getting into the top six was the minimum expected of us this year, so if we get any worse than that it will be a failure.”
Fox made several fine saves to keep Aberdeen at bay prior to their late winner, however the former Partick Thistle goalkeeper took no satisfaction from his performance and bemoaned the Highlanders’ lack of attacking threat.
The 29-year-old added: “It’s about the team. We are disappointed we’re out the cup. We were hoping, with the way the game was going, to maybe get a draw and then go to Pittodrie and see what happened there.
“During the week, when we go through it with the goalkeeping coach, I’ll maybe be able to see the positives but it’s disappointing just now. We stayed in it, it wasn’t our best performance but we restricted their chances. We were disappointed with ourselves at not creating enough, but for them to score so late on was disappointing.
“They had a few chances but it was nothing major. We just had no cutting edge and that’s really disappointing.”