Ross County manager Jim McIntyre believes his players will take confidence from their impressive showing against Rangers at Ibrox.
The Staggies drew with Mark Warburton’s side for the third time this season, with Alex Schalk’s opening goal cancelled out by Rangers captain Lee Wallace.
After successive defeats by Kilmarnock and Motherwell, McIntyre was pleased to see his players produce a much-improved display at Ibrox, ahead of this weekend’s last-16 Scottish Cup tie against Aberdeen.
The Ross County manager said: “We had to hang on at times but the character the players displayed was really pleasing.
“We didn’t play that badly in the last two games against Kilmarnock and Motherwell but we were being made to pay for some individual mistakes.
“We deserved to take a point from the match and certainly didn’t deserve to lose against Rangers.
“The most pleasing aspect was that we offered more of a threat in attack, that was very important.
“We got the balance right between knowing when to press Rangers and when to sit off them and we managed to create some great opportunities.”
There were several standout performers for the Staggies, with Andrew Davies and Marcus Fraser excelling in the heart of defence, while Dutch attacker Alex Schalk gave Rangers defender Philippe Senderos a torrid time and could have netted a hat-trick in the first half during a lively display.
McIntyre also heaped praise on Scott Fox, who made some excellent stops to prevent Rangers claiming victory.
He said: “Scott is a fantastic goalkeeper and he has done that on a regular basis for us.
“We know when we go to a place like Ibrox that we are going to need our goalkeeper to make saves at some stage in the game, whether that is early in the match if they start strongly or later on.”
January signings Jim O’Brien and Milan Lalkovic also acquitted themselves well and McIntyre is pleased with the way his squad is shaping up for the second half of the campaign.
He added: “We have got good strength in depth. That is why we signed the players in the window.
“Jim and Milan were great against Rangers and put so much work into the game which was why we needed to replace them with Michael Gardyne and Ryan Dow later on.”
