Ross County manager Jim McIntyre insists he does not regret taking just two pre-season fixtures ahead of the Staggies’ disastrous Betfred Cup group campaign.
County’s defence of the trophy ended in embarrassing fashion, their 3-2 defeat by Alloa Athletic knocking them out of the competition with tomorrow’s game against Cove Rangers still to play.
The newly-revamped tournament saw County return to competitive action with a game against Montrose on July 16, with McIntyre opting to play just two friendlies against Hungarian sides Paksi and Soroksar during their pre-season training camp near Budapest this month.
McIntyre says playing more games would have put his squad at risk of injury and burnout, however, and says his side should have been good enough to reach the last 16 from their group.
When asked if he would have played more games in hindsight, McIntyre said: “No. We would normally play five or six games before we play a competitive match and we might face a wee bit of burnout if we did that – 10 games in July is ridiculous.
“With the size of squad we have we wouldn’t be able to cope with that number of games and we’d pick up injuries. We have a good enough squad that should have come through the group stages without any problems.
“The bottom line is we made bad mistakes as individuals and got punished. On the other side of the coin, we made umpteen opportunities to score and we didn’t take them. Both sides of that had to be better.”
McIntyre was adamant Alloa defender Jim Goodwin should have been sent off for an early challenge on Michael Gardyne, while he also claimed County were denied a clear penalty when Alex Schalk was brought down by defender Jason Marr late on.
The Staggies manager has since received the backing of SFA head of refereeing John Fleming, who agreed referee Stephen Finnie got both decisions wrong.
But McIntyre insists he is not looking for excuses, adding: “There were a couple of key decisions on the night which stick in my throat. I have spoken to John Fleming and he agrees it should have been a 100% red card for Jim Goodwin in the sixth minute and that we should have had a stonewall penalty.
“Take those two things out of the equation and our first half was still unacceptable, down to the way we defended and individual errors. That cost us.
“Our overall performance was really disappointing. I cannot dress it up. It wasn’t good enough, simple as that.”