Ross County co-manager Steven Ferguson admits today’s opponents Ayr United have performed above his early season expectations by surging to the top of the Championship.
The Staggies face Ian McCall’s men in a crucial top of the table encounter at Somerset Park today, with Ayr a point clear of the Dingwall men with a game in hand.
Ferguson says the scale of Ayr’s success since winning promotion from League 1 last season has taken him by surprise, and he said: “Would I have expected them to be top of the league? I’m going to be honest and say probably not. But they definitely deserve to be top of the league.
“They are flying in confidence and looking like a team really comfortable with the situation they’re in.
“That makes it difficult to knock them off their perch, but that’s what we need to do.”
Ferguson insists he is well aware of the threats posed by the Honest Men, adding: “We saw the game where they were convincing 5-0 winners against Dundee United – and they deserved everything they got from that game.
“We knew enough about Ayr already though. We played them up here and it was very much a game of two halves, but we certainly saw them flash their teeth in that second half and we know how dangerous they can be.
“Lawrence Shankland grabs all the headlines, and rightly so for the amount of goals he scores. But what has impressed Stuart Kettlewell and I most is their team ethic and work-rate.
“They have players who work for each other and that obviously helps the likes of Michael Moffat and Shankland at the top end.”
