Goalkeeper says Inverness Caley Thistle must focus on Scottish Cup final after promotion disappointment
GOALKEEPER Mark Ridgers says Inverness Caledonian Thistle must get over the disappointment of missing out on promotion and fully focus on playing Celtic in the Scottish Cup final.
Inverness suffered a 2-1 defeat to Ayr United on Friday, which saw them finish in sixth place in the Championship and miss out on the play-offs.
Now the squad have a 25-day wait until their final match of the season when they take on Celtic at Hampden on Saturday, June 3.
Ridgers admitted they can only see this season as a failure as promotion was the primary aim for the club.
But they have to get the disappointment out of their heads as they prepare to face the champions and stop them from winning the treble next month.
Ridgers said: “It is obviously disappointing as we wanted to try and make the play-offs.
“Our goal at the start of the season was to try and get promoted.
“The overall picture of this season was a lot of injuries caused a lot of problems.
“We have to look at the league campaign as a failure because that is not what we wanted.
“But we have to put our heads down as we have a lot of time between now and the cup final.
“We will get over it, it is a kick in the teeth, but we gave ourselves a brilliant chance when we took it to the last game of the season.
“We lost it, now we have to look at the cup final.”
Inverness went into last Friday’s game against Ayr with seven wins from eight matches in all competitions.
Ridgers admitted in the first half Inverness were not at their best, but were better in the second half.
“The last few months have shown how good we can be with our results,” he said.
“Although against Ayr, we did look a bit spooked, we sat back and didn’t have an answer for it.
“In the second half we had nothing to lose and we really went for it.
“Then we got caught when we were trying to get the winner.
“The manager, board and players now have to rebuild and try and go again next season.”
Ridgers believes Inverness can achieve better than sixth place, but also have to accept that is where they finished.
“We know we are better than where we finished, but we still finished sixth. We let ourselves down in some games even when we had a full squad, I look back at the two Hamilton games when we played well and lost.
“We have the players and we have shown that in the last few months, but ultimately that is where we are in the table. “
