JIM McINTYRE has targeted a top-six Ladbrokes Premiership spot and a place in Europe after helping Ross County claim the first major trophy in their 87 year history.
McIntyre masterminded County’s thrilling 2-1 triumph over Hibernian in the League Cup final at Hampden on Sunday afternoon. But the former Dunfermline and Queen of the South manager has revealed he is determined to savour more success with the Dingwall club.
He has put their trophy celebrations on hold until after the league games against St Johnstone away in Perth tomorrow and Inverness Caledonian Thistle at home on Saturday.
“I definitely think we can target trying to finish in a European place,” said McIntrye. “That would, for me, be the ultimate goal. But you have to walk before you run. And we have to build. That, for me, in the biggest thing – to build.
“It would be brilliant to get into Europe with Ross County and very, very difficult. But it’s certainly not impossible.
“You have to have aspirations. Saying at a start of the season ‘I would be quite content to stay in the league’ . . . ‘Well, no, I wouldn’t.
“That’s not what I want. I want to put it out there I want us to be a top-six side – and if I don’t make it then I have failed.
“Now we have a long way to go before we can say we’re top six. If we don’t get the points over the next four games to do that then I’ll be disappointed.”
Meanwhile, McIntrye has expressed hope that winning the League Cup will enable County to attract better players to Dingwall in the future.
“There’s no doubt it can be hard to get players north,” he said. “We found it that way at the start but then winning the League Cup might make it easier in the future.
“When players come and see the facilities then their minds are changed. Andrew Davies came in and said the facilities blew his mind – they are much better than he had in England’s League One."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here