Ross County co-manager Stuart Kettlewell admitted the club have not been good enough all season following their relegation from the Ladbrokes Premiership.
The Staggies were held to a 1-1 draw at St Johnstone but for most of the afternoon it looked as though they might sneak into the relegation play-off having taken an early lead.
However, Partick Thistle’s 1-0 win at Dundee meant County’s result was irrelevant and David Wotherspoon ended any slim hopes of a miraculous recovery with a well-taken leveller late on.
Kettlewell only took over in March with co-manager Steven Ferguson and he was quick to point out that the team’s failure to escape the drop was not down to the result in Perth.
“It’s [relegation] what happens over the course of the season and it’s not been good enough from our point of view,” said Kettlewell, who succeeded Owen Coyle.
“We have won six games all season and it’s not good enough. You will be in this position if you only win six games all season. From myself and Steven’s point of view, we will 100 per cent take responsibility for our 10 games in charge and we don’t start to point fingers at individuals.
“It’s about what you do as a football club and that unity builds success and we have to go away and assess that and see how we can move forward."
Meanwhile, relieved Partick Thistle manager Alan Archibald was delighted that his gamble to use talismanic forward Doolan as an impact substitute paid off, with the striker scoring their all-important winner against Dundee.
“I’m delighted for Kris, he’ll be raging that he never started,” said Archibald. “I just felt he started the last few games and we needed something from the bench. It was a gamble, but sometimes it pays off. I won’t get any plaudits for putting him on. But he does what he does and I thought the game would open up. It took an eternity to go in.
“Kris’s record is fantastic because, without dissing us, we’re not the top scorers by any means, we are low every year. That’s not great for us. But a lot of the goals come from him. His ratio of chances to goals is incredible.”
Archibald will now lead his men into the play-off final against Livingston for the right to play in next season’s Premiership, and he knows the challenge his side face in the first leg on Thursday night.
“We played them in the League Cup on the first day of the season. We know what they’ve got, we know their qualities. They are a good footballing side as well.
“After the split has been positive, I know we’ve only had two victories, but it’s been positive. It’s important to keep the lads positive and that gave us a massive lift today.”
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