No more Mr nice guys demands Caley Thistle manager John Robertson
JOHN Robertson wants his players to ditch the nice guy image and develop a harder edge as the Championship promotion fight intensifies.
With Dundee United 21 points clear, second place is now the only realistic target for Caley Thistle.
And with 13 games to go, the Inverness manager is calling for a greater ruthlessness from within the ranks that must include demanding more from team-mates around them.
The Inverness team played well but went down 2-1 at rain-lashed Tannadice on Friday night, with Louis Appere’s opener and Lawrence Shankland’s eventual winner coming either side of a Jordan White reply.
Finishing second would create lesser demands on weary legs at the close of an arduous season.
But the Caley Jags are no shoe-ins for the runners-up honour, with Dundee, Ayr United, Arbroath, Dunfermline and even Morton and Alloa retaining an interest in promotion play-off places.
Robertson said: “The players are too nice to each other at times. They don’t fall out with each other on the pitch.
“They don’t give each other stick for a bad pass or getting into a bad area.
“They’ve got to drive each other on, if someone’s not doing something they need them to do. They need to get on to them.
“We put more than enough into Friday’s game to get something out of it. The reason we haven’t is we’re not clinical enough.
“Lots of little things make a big difference and that’s what let us down again. Right now, any one of five or six teams can finish in the play-off places.
“We should have taken something from the game and that’s my annoyance. We should be sitting nine or 10 points clear in second place, given the amount of games where we’ve thrown away stupid points.”
Robertson’s depth of frustration stems from the fact he feels, on a limited budget, his team are not too far off United in terms of quality.
It is the fine details they have paid a price for.
He added: “There’s nothing majorly wrong with my side or the way we play.
“It is the little details that are killing us – marking men in the box, stopping crosses coming in, showing people into less-dangerous areas.
“That’s the annoying aspect of it tonight, because there was very little between the teams.
“United, when they get a chance, they put you to the sword – and that’s why they’re going to be deserving champions.
“United are 21 points clear. Nobody’s going to catch them. It now becomes a bun-fight for second, third and fourth because there are six or seven teams in it, easily.
“We need to go down to Dunfermline, freshen the team up and be ready to go again.
“Right now, the way the league is, you have as much chance of finishing seventh as you have of finishing second."
