Don Cowie empathises with the frustration of Ross County supporters following the team's disappointing exit from the Premier Sports Cup, where they suffered a shock defeat to fourth-tier Spartans.
The Scottish Premiership club was eliminated in the last-16 round after a narrow 1-0 loss to their League Two rivals at Ainslie Park.
Cowie acknowledges the need for his squad to rectify their performance against the Edinburgh side as they prepare to visit Rangers in the league on Saturday, followed by a home showdown with Aberdeen before the September international break.
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“The fans are rightly unhappy,” the Staggies boss admitted as he criticised the timing of Blair Henderson's second half goal.
“We’re all unhappy, we’re an honest group and football club and we know when we’ve let ourselves down.
“The fans came and supported us, as they always do, and like us they were thinking this was a great opportunity to progress in the cup.
“We can put that right now going into the league campaign by showing them that we’re hurting from this defeat.
“The frustration is we conceded so early after half-time. We spoke about it, about not giving them any encouragement.
“To concede within 30 seconds of the restart, that was really disappointing but we had more than enough time to bring the game back into our hands and we didn’t do enough. We huffed and puffed and that’s the biggest frustration.”
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