Inverness Caledonian Thistle goalkeeper will bounce back after Alloa error
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Mark Ridgers has been tipped to recover quickly from his costly mistake at Alloa Athletic by teammate Shane Sutherland.
Inverness Caledonian Thistle lost 2–1 in Clackmannanshire last weekend, and while there was nothing Ridgers could do about the first – a sensational free kick from Innes Murray – he was at fault for the second.
Murray played a diagonal ball over the top of Danny Devine for Robert Thomson to hit towards goal.
The ball looked like it was going straight at Ridgers, only for the stand-in skipper to fumble it, leaving him helplessly watching the ball roll into the net.
It was a surprising moment for all involved, not in the least because the goalkeeper is usually so reliable between the sticks.
So Shane Sutherland, who has a shot kept out by Neil Parry that could have made it 2–0 to Inverness at the end of the first half, expects Ridgers to be back on top form for the trip to Greenock Morton this Saturday.
“We see him in training every day, so it was uncharacteristic definitely,” Sutherland said.
“He won’t hang about on it, he will probably have thought about it on Saturday night, but once he got back into training on Monday it was forgotten about like everything else is, and we were working towards Morton.
“He’s played enough games to know that when a goalie makes a mistake, he gets punished. If he drops it in the six-yard box, someone will probably tap it in – that’s the life of a goalkeeper.
“He’s strong enough to deal with that, I’m sure he’s come back from these things throughout his career.
“He just gets on with it, and he will work just as hard this week as he does every other week.”
Losing at Alloa was all the more disappointing coming after a four matches unbeaten in all competitions.
After losing to Raith Rovers in a penalty shoot-out in the Betfred Cup, Caley Thistle then went on to beat East Fife in their final group game.
Back-to-back Champion-ship wins followed, as Inverness saw off Raith at home before grabbing another clean sheet in Dumfries against Queen of the South.
Drawing against Dundee even seemed like an acceptable result after three successes, but ICT came crashing back to earth away at Alloa.
Back on the road on Saturday, this time travelling to Greenock, Sutherland insists their focus is all on the next match.
Taking things one game at a time is a cliché, but it is important not to get too carried away in either direction.
Being level-headed helps players produce consistent performances, so ICT are focused on recapturing their good form from November.
“You don’t want to get too high when it’s high, and you don’t want to get too low when it’s low,” Sutherland reasoned.
“It’s important that you stay level-minded even when you’re getting good results.
“You can’t start thinking it’s going to be easy just because you won last week, or just because we got beat last Saturday doesn’t mean we’ll lose this one.
“We’ve worked hard on the training ground to get the boys going again, because we were all disappointed – it wasn’t an acceptable performance at Alloa with the standards we’ve set ourselves – but we’ve got to move on.”
