Caley Thistle’s Greg Tansey believes stand-in captain Graeme Shinnie is so versatile he could even play in goal.
At Celtic Park last Saturday, Shinnie vacated his usual left-back position in order to form a three-man central midfield alongside the regular pairing of Tansey and Ross Draper.
Despite Caley Jags losing 1-0, Tansey felt Shinnie’s performance in his first appearance this season in the middle of the park is indicative of the 23-year-old’s versatility.
Tansey said: “Graeme is a player who turns up week-in, week-out – you know what you’re going to get from him. The great player that he is, Graeme could probably do a good turn in goal. He’s just an all-round very good footballer, with a great football mind, so it’s no big thing for him to drop into midfield.
“We started with Graeme and Ross Draper in front of me. I was screening the back four but as it went on we switched it round with Ross sitting in and I pushed further forward. It was a very good performance from the lads and on another day we could have come away with all three points.”
Tansey took heart from the way his side competed against the Premiership champions and felt Caley Thistle could easily have taken something from the game. The 25-year-old hopes Inverness can extend their unbeaten home run spanning six games on Saturday when they face a Hamilton Accies side that has vastly improved since Caley Jags beat Alex Neil’s men 2-0 on the opening day of the season.
Tansey added: “Celtic are the best team in Scotland by a country mile and we stood up to them for 90 minutes. We went toe-to-toe and another day we could have scored two or three. It wasn’t to be but the lads won’t let the heads drop. We have a massive game against Hamilton, so if we win that it’s been a good solid four games leading up to the international break.
“Credit to Hamilton, we walked off the pitch after the first game of the season with a comfortable victory. Since then they have been fantastic and we know it is going to be a really tough test on Saturday.”