Ross County midfielder David Cancola feels keeping a strong mentality holds the key to the Staggies climbing the Premiership table.

County have dropped to the foot of the division, after St Mirren’s 3-2 win at Victoria Park extended the Staggies’ winless run to nine games.

The Dingwall men host Livingston, who are four points ahead of them, in a crucial encounter at Dingwall on Saturday.

Austrian midfielder Cancola says Malky Mackay’s men must retain a strong belief in their approach to games in a bid to start picking up results.

Cancola said: “We made it hard for ourselves.

“I felt we were in the game really well at the beginning and then we conceded the first goal.

“It set it in our minds that we were losing again and we just need to get that out of our heads.

“I’ve been in this situation before and the only thing that gets you out of this is believing in our plan and believing in ourselves as a team.

“It doesn’t help if we start doing our own things, or getting thoughts that we are going to lose again.

“We have to believe that we are going to get out of this.

“Sometimes, we all know there are teams where it just doesn’t feel like they have enough quality. That’s definitely not the case in our team.

“I can feel it every time we train and in every game that we have the quality to play a lot better and get a lot better results than we’re getting right now.

“It is all mental, I think. I’m sure we are going to work on that and get started on the next game.”

County must work on keeping the goals out

Cancola insists there is plenty time to turn the season around, but he says the Staggies must strive to keep the back door shut, having not kept a clean sheet since the opening game of the season.

He added: “We scored two goals and we created chances. We need to stop conceding so easily.

“It is not like teams are cutting us up, we just conceded out of nothing.

“That’s something we’re going to work on and I’m sure we’re going to turn it around.

“It is hard to take any kind of positives after a game like that, but the fact we’re not being cut open by teams is one.

“We will do our video analysis and draw the positives we can, we will work on the negatives and do it better in the next game.

“I’d be lying if I said it is not affecting us, but we have to continue working on the fact that every game is three points.

“It doesn’t matter what has gone before, the season is so long.”

Cancola, who was a summer signing from Slovan Liberec, says the lack of form is not hindering his enjoyment of Scottish football.

The 24-year-old added: “That’s super-important. Once the other side of it starts becoming negative, which can easily happen in situations like this, then it is really hard to get out of it.

“But we still have this positive mindset and that’s why I’m super-confident it is not going to be long until we turn it around.”