Ross County forward Craig Curran is urging the club’s frustrated supporters to rally behind the Staggies instead of taking their anger out on manager Jim McIntyre.
The Dingwall club has endured a disappointing campaign, winning just seven matches and missing out on a top-six position.
A section of County’s supporters displayed their unhappiness during Tuesday’s 2-1 victory against Dundee, unfurling a “McIntyre out” banner at half time.
Curran and his teammates took note of the protest, and the Englishman has warned such displays could be damaging.
County are six points ahead of bottom-placed Caley Thistle and are aiming to move further away from the relegation zone when they take on Hamilton Accies at New Douglas Park today.
Curran said: “The supporters here have been brilliant from day one since I came here.
“We can understand their frustration because they know how good we are.
“They know the players we’ve got.
“What I would say to them is the players and the staff are working so hard.
“Sometimes things just happen, they go the other way.
” When we’ve been on a run like we have, it mounts up. But it shows out there how much we’re scrapping, right until the last minute.
“The supporters have been amazing, but things like the banner don’t help anyone. They don’t help us as players, or as a club or a team.
“I would respectfully like to ask them not to do stuff like that, because we can see it when we’re playing. We’ve got a strong togetherness throughout everyone – that’s supporters included.
“I understand their frustration about where we’re at but at the moment, we need to scrap and get ourselves up the league.
“We need to get ourselves away from everything else and finish seventh. We do that by staying together on and off the pitch.
“We are trying our best to turn it around and Tuesday night’s win against Dundee proved we are here to do that.
“We will turn it around – our performances have shown that. We just need the results to match which it did on Tuesday.”
County are aiming to rack up back-to-back victories for only the third time this season, and Curran feels a strong finish to the season will transform the mood at Dingwall.
The 27-year-old added: “If we go and get a win or two with a couple of good performances, the whole thing will change. Confidence levels will rise, our mindset is then a little bit different, suddenly we’ll have more energy.
“It becomes more fluent and that’s just the way football goes. Teams go on good runs and bad runs, turning that around the other night shows we’re still here, we’re still competing, and the quality will come through.”