Ross County manager Derek Adams says Saturday’s Scottish Cup exit at the hands of Partick Thistle could alter his January transfer window plans.
The Staggies were defeated 3-0 by Championship side Thistle at Victoria Park, leaving them to solely focus on the Premiership for the remainder of the campaign.
It is the fifth successive season in which County have been knocked out of the Scottish Cup at the fourth round stage, with their last victory in the competition a 2-1 triumph against Motherwell in January 2019.
Adams has already been proactive in the January window, making four loan signings so far.
Fulham goalkeeper George Wickens and Cardiff City midfielder Eli King started against the Jags, while teenager Brandon Khela has arrived from Birmingham City and left back Cameron Borthwick-Jackson is on loan from Polish club Slask Wroclaw.
Adams has indicated he has a further two loan agreements in place which he hopes to finalise this week.
The Staggies boss says the manner of Saturday’s loss will prompt him to consider how he approaches the next nine days before the transfer deadline.
He has indicated the mid-season nature of the window will make it difficult for him to make wholesale changes.
Adams said: “I’ll think about things and see what we’ll do going forward.
“We had George and Eli on the pitch on Saturday. George couldn’t have done anything about the goals and I thought Eli played well.
“Are we going to make wholesale changes? No, that’s not going to be the case. We can’t do that – that’s the difficulty in January.
“We’ve taken four players in so far, and I’ll definitely have a wee think about things a bit more over the coming days.”
Adams attempted to shake up Staggies side at interval
County trailed by two goals at half-time on Saturday, with the Jags establishing a comfortable lead through strikes from Brian Graham and Scott Robinson.
That prompted Adams to make three substitutions at the interval, bringing on James Brown, Jordan White and Jay Henderson.
🎥 🏆 @RossCounty v @PartickThistle
A successful journey north for Partick Thistle saw a dominant performance take them into the Fifth Round at the expense of hosts Ross County.#ScottishCup pic.twitter.com/QLSPsToi4J
— Scottish Gas Scottish Cup (@ScottishCup) January 22, 2024
Adams says making such sweeping changes was far from ideal, with Thistle going on to net a third goal through Stuart Bannigan’s stunning strike.
He added: “As a manager, I shouldn’t have to do that.
“As players, we weren’t good enough on Saturday. We didn’t do the basics right, and when you make basic errors at this level, it’s a huge problem for us. That’s what we did.”
Samuel allowed to leave on loan
Adams last week allowed striker Alex Samuel to join Highland rivals Caley Thistle on loan for the remainder of the season.
Welshman Samuel opened his Inverness account on Saturday, by netting in their 4-0 victory over Lowland League side Broomhill.
With Samuel having started just one game for the Staggies this season, Adams insists he was prepared to allow the forward the opportunity to find more regular action with the second-tier Caley Jags.
Adams added: “Alex has been here for a number of seasons now and has not had a lot of game time.
“When you’re a professional football player you want to play football, so it will be good for him to go and hopefully get starts each week.”
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