Caley Thistle captain Gary Warren believes his team-mates have only themselves to blame after Saturday’s 2-1 defeat against Motherwell left the Highlanders’ top six hopes hanging by a thread.
Inverness looked to have momentum on their side, after Iain Vigurs’ 70th-minute penalty cancelled out Lionel Ainsworth’s opener for the Steelmen.
Motherwell took all three points when midfielder Marvin Johnson netted a breakaway winning goal for the Lanarkshire side, which leaves Caley Jags four points behind sixth-placed Dundee with only two games left until the split.
Defender Warren feels the failure to learn from costly mistakes has done the damage to his side’s campaign, and he said: “It’s just not professional enough from us. We keep shooting ourselves in the foot.
“I can’t stress how many times that’s happened to us this season.
“We’ve conceded in the last five minutes in so many games. We’ve got to learn to be more ruthless.
“That’s been the story for us for the majority of the season. We looked to go and kill them off once we got that first goal, but left ourselves open from our corner.
“We nearly scored, but we’ve not set up right and they broke and scored. It’s our own fault and it’s so frustrating.
“We dominated possession but we haven’t created enough chances, and we’ve conceded a goal at the end.
“That’s probably about 10 games this season we’ve conceded in the last 10 minutes, and it’s our own fault.
“We haven’t learned. We should learn after the first or second game it happens to us, not the ninth or 10th.”
Inverness face Hearts at Caledonian Stadium tomorrow night, before making the trip to bottom-placed Dundee United on Saturday.
Warren knows maximum points at least are required in order for Caley Jags to finish in the top half, and the 31-year-old added: “We’ve got a big game, one we have to win. Make no bones about it, we’ve got to win.
“We’ve got two games before the split now, and we’ve got to win both of them to leave ourselves with any slim chance if there’s any chance at all.”
