Life in the Championship begins for Ross County against Alloa Athletic today and Staggies captain Marcus Fraser is determined to quickly instil a winning mentality at Victoria Park.
The Staggies play their first fixture since suffering relegation from the Premiership last term when they host a Wasps side who won promotion from League One through the play-offs.
With County’s six-year stay in the top-flight an end, defender Fraser wants the Staggies to start the league campaign as they mean to go on at Dingwall today.
He said: “It will be difficult but we want to start in a positive manner and take that on for the rest of the season. We’re at home for the first game so that’s important.
“This season we’ll be trying to win every game we play, just as we tried to do in the Premiership, but we need to make this a place where we rack up the points.
“When the fixture list comes out, you always look forward to the first league game.”
He added: “Everything has gone well, albeit we had one setback in the Betfred Cup group against Arbroath.
“But after a setback, you look for a positive result, and we did that against Alloa last week.
“I couldn’t stress how much the boys and the club wanted to get through the group because it’s important you start the season off with a bit of momentum.”
County face Alloa for the second time in seven days this afternoon, having sealed their qualification for the second round of the Betfred Cup with a 2-0 victory at Recreation Park last weekend.
Fraser is wary of a response from Jim Goodwin’s men, with the 24-year-old saying: “Playing Alloa again so soon makes it interesting – that doesn’t happen too often.
“It will be interesting to see how the game shapes up.”
He added: “Alloa showed some good sides to their game last week so we have to be wary.
“There was a spell at the start of the second half where they looked dangerous. Whoever you play, you need to respect them. Nobody is going to lie down to us.”
County co-managers Stuart Kettlewell and Steven Ferguson could field attacker Brian Graham against Alloa after he returned to the club on a two-year deal from English League Two side Cheltenham Town.
Fraser said “It is good to see him back. Hopefully he can keep getting on the scoresheet and I’ll be happy with that. We won the League Cup that year (2016) – a massive day for the club and a great feeling to be part of it – and hopefully there are more good times to come here for Brian and the rest of us.”