Owen Coyle feels Ross County are not far from clicking despite their 2-1 defeat to Hibernian confining them to the bottom of the Premiership at Christmas.
The Staggies again surrendered a lead as Paul Hanlon’s own-goal was cancelled out by strikes from Anthony Stokes and Oli Shaw.
They are now seven games without a win and Partick Thistle’s 1-0 win over Hamilton sees them jump into 11th and sink County to the bottom.
Coyle feels there are plenty of positive signs in his side, with two big games against St Johnstone and Partick coming up in the next week.
Coyle said: “We know it’s so close to coming together and the margins are very fine. If we’re on the right side of them over the last five games we could have picked up a lot of points. That’s the side we need to address and quickly.
“I don’t think there was a lack of effort. We’ve got to understand we have to see the game through. Hibs are a very good side loaded with pace but I felt we dealt with that reasonably well. We scored a good goal and at that point it doesn’t have to be pretty but it does it have to be effective. As we did against Rangers and Kilmarnock, we let a lead slip.
His Hibernian counterpart Neil Lennon felt it would have been a “travesty” had the home side not come away with all three points, given they controlled large periods of the match.
Lennon said: “We played some great football and could and should have won by more but we have beaten a very good team today.
“It would have been a travesty if we hadn’t won, given our dominance of the game.