Ross County manager Jim McIntyre would be thrilled to become the latest manager of a provincial football club to upset the established order and enjoy cup success.
Tonight’s League Cup quarter-final opponents Inverness won the Scottish Cup last season, with St Johnstone having done so the previous year, while Aberdeen, St Mirren and Kilmarnock have won the League Cup within the last four years.
The County manager, pictured, is focused on reaching a semi-final by securing his first Highland derby victory since taking over at Victoria Park last September.
McIntyre said: “I would say more teams can win the cup competitions now. That’s been proven with different winners of each competition – look at Inverness, St Johnstone and Aberdeen in the last three years.
“They’ve all shown that the cups offer the best opportunity for provincial clubs to get a bit of silverware.
“Some of the Championship sides have also gone far in competitions in the last few years.
“What that does is give everybody a bit more belief they can do it.
“But we’re not looking at winning a cup, we’re looking at reaching a semi-final. We’ll take it a step at a time. There’s certainly a belief in our dressing-room but we just have to take the game in front of us.
“We know it will be a really tough game. It’s a Highland derby and we know how tough they are. We’ve yet to win one since I came to the club.”
County lost 2-0 against Hearts at the weekend, despite the dismissal of Jambos captain Blazej Augustyn early in the second-half.
Inverness were also defeated by 10 men, going down 1-0 at home to St Johnstone in a match where the Caley Jags were forced to make do without nine first-team players through injury.
Most of the absentees are also set to miss tonight’s game, but McIntyre says the onus is on his side regardless of who they line up against.
He added: “There’s no doubt Inverness are a bit stretched in terms of key players missing, but we have a couple of key players out as well.
“We just have to look after ourselves and make sure we bring a level of performance that’s going to be good enough.”