What did Duncan Ferguson say after Inverness Caley Thistle lost at home to Arbroath?
MANAGER Duncan Ferguson says Inverness Caledonian Thistle remain in a battle against relegation as they suffered a 2-1 defeat to Arbroath at the Caledonian Stadium.
Jay Bird gave Arbroath the lead after 29 minutes but Billy Mckay equalised 10 minutes later, only for the visitors to regain the lead two minutes later through David Gold which proved to be the winner.
The defeat means Inverness Caledonian Thistle have dropped to eighth place in the table and only one point ahead of Arbroath who are in the relegation play-off spot.
Ferguson says Caley Thistle remain in a fight against relegation this season after two disappointing defeats against teams below them this week.
It included a 2-1 loss at Greenock Morton on Tuesday night, who are now in fifth place after they defeated bottom of the table Queen's Park 1-0 at Cappielow.
He said: "We started the week well and are now on the back of two defeats which puts us under pressure.
"Teams below us have games in hand, we were in a relegation battle when we came in and we are still in the battle.
"But there are a lot of teams in that position and probably only the top three or four are away from it.
"We are one point from fifth, but we have defeats from two teams that were below us in the league and that puts us under pressure.
"If you can't win it, don't get beat. We were well worthy of a result today but it didn't go for us, we have to see out the game better than that."
Despite the defeat to Arbroath, Ferguson felt Inverness were the better team on Saturday afternoon and deserved at least a point from the match.
"I felt we deserved something from it. I felt we were the better team.
"We had chances early on and never took them and that would have changed the whole perspective of the game.
"We created chances in the first half and had balls flashing across the box and couldn't get on the end of it.
"Arbroath's first goal was fortunate, but they did take it well. We then went up the pitch and scored but we didn't hold on long enough.
"With two or three minutes, they had an easy entry into our box, we didn't stop the cross and they had a free header. We had three centre backs for a reason and no one picked him up.
"You're going in at half-time 2-1 down, having not seeing where it came from.
"In the second half, we huffed and puffed. We dominated the possession and created half chances across the box and had a header over the bar. But we didn't really look like scoring.
"They played a high line and in some parts of the game we could not find the ball over the top and the runner to get on the end of it.
"They sat back and soaked up the pressure, and tried to hit us on the counter a bit.
"I cannot fault the boys' effort. If we had taken the first couple of chances then it's a different outlook."