Caley Thistle goalkeeper Mark Ridgers believes his side’s Scottish Cup defeat against St Mirren has given them added motivation for tomorrow night’s crucial clash against Dundee.
Neil McCann’s side produced an impressive display in their fourth round encounter against St Mirren in Paisley on Friday night only to succumb to Marcus Fraser’s late winner in the 2-1 defeat.
Having knocked Ross County out of the competition in the previous round, Ridgers feels pushing another Scottish Premiership side all the way proves his side are ready to return to the top flight.
A victory against Dundee would move Caley Thistle up to fourth and inside the play-off spots with only two games of the season remaining.
Ridgers said: “I felt we were brilliant against St Mirren and at least deserved to take the tie to extra time.
“We dominated and had plenty of chances but their goalkeeper (Jak Alnwick) was man of the match, which said a lot.
“We can fully focus on the league now but we will take lots of positives from the St Mirren game as every single player was tremendous.
“We have this mentality where we don’t feel we will lose games. We were unbeaten in eight before we played St Mirren which made the result even more frustrating.
“Anyone in the stadium would have agreed that we were the better team on the night.
“We have to be ready to go on Tuesday night because it is a massive game for us in terms of what we set out at the beginning of the season to do.”
HIGHLIGHTS | @saintmirrenfc 2-1 Inverness Caledonian Thistle#ScottishCup pic.twitter.com/n7WBeiXypx
— Scottish Cup (@ScottishCup) April 17, 2021
Dundee sit third in the Championship but have stuttered in recent weeks with a 1-1 draw against Greenock Morton followed by a 0-0 stalemate at Dunfermline.
Ridgers said: “We have had something like 14 games in a month and a half but I can’t speak highly enough of how hard the players in front of me on the pitch are working.
“They are giving everything but if we produce the same level of performance on Tuesday as we did against St Mirren then I’m pretty sure it will be a different result.”
Scott Allan again caught the eye against St Mirren with another swashbuckling display in his first full 90-minute appearance in over a year.
Ridgers believes the on-loan Hibernian midfielder, who had feared his career was over after being diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, has played a pivotal part to Caley Thistle’s recent purple patch.
He added: “When Scott came to the club I think a lot of people were taken by surprise.
“It shows the club’s ambition to get a player like that to join us.
“It is a credit to the manager Neil and Billy Dodds to bring him in because he has lifted everyone.
“He is an unbelievable player.
“I know Scott from our Scotland under-21 days and it is great to see him back playing.
“He gives us an added threat going forward and he is one of the reasons why we are starting to score more goals.
“Nikolay Todorov can’t stop scoring at the moment and that is what we need if we are going to finish the league campaign as strongly as possible.”