Eight reasons why Ross County are struggling

Winless in nine matches, Ross County are plummeting down the Premiership. Fixtures against Rangers at home and St Johnstone in Perth suggest it might be some time yet before Jim McInytre’s side can pick up a win. With just seven victories in 30 league matches through 2016, pressure is mounting on the management team to address the club’s alarming form.

John A Maxwell suggests some of the reasons why the League Cup holders are facing difficulty.

1) Lack of evolution

February 14, 2015, Ross County 3-2 Motherwell. It marked the end of a three-month winless streak, which left the team festering at the bottom of the league and looking certainties for relegation.

The victory over Motherwell was a catalyst for a remarkable turnaround in form, winning eight matches – drawing the other – from nine to help the club leapfrog St Mirren and Motherwell, eventually finishing in a respectable position.

County’s success was down to playing basic, uncomplicated football, but doing it well. McIntyre used a 4-4-2 based on winning the ball back early before finding the forwards as soon as possible with deliveries from the wingers. Liam Boyce’s second goal in a hat-trick against St Mirren was the archetypical routine.

Players defended with a man-marking system all across the pitch, which was a relatively novel approach in the contemporary game. The opposition didn’t have time to settle then were unlikely to have the opportunity to exploit County’s weaknesses, including a shortage of pace across the team and a lack of protection in front of the centre-backs.

County have played a lot of football since then, but the system hasn’t evolved. The introduction of slower centre-backs and the sale of Jackson Irvine have exacerbated the weaknesses in open play, but the team still generally play 4-4-2 and are encouraged to play higher up the pitch and with a faster tempo than they are perhaps naturally inclined to do. Scouting and video analysis on the team is easy – you could pick almost any game from Valentine’s Day ’15 to the beginning of this season and the template for how the team works will fit the cut no matter what. It worked when playing teams expected to finish out with the top four or five of the league, but soon enough most teams knew exactly what they were facing and could adjust accordingly.

Exceptions to the rule are few and far between, to the extent that McIntyre shocked everyone when using a 3-5-2 in the league cup final against Hibernian earlier in the year. The only other deviations to that point were in reverting to a 4-1-4-1 against Celtic. The 3-5-2 appeared to handily address a lot of the team’s shortcomings, with Marcus Fraser covering his senior centre-backs, while a dedicated sitting midfielder could plug the gap in front of the defence and two strikers could still be retained. McIntyre flirted with 3-5-2 at times from March through to the end of the 2015-16 season, but there was little else to play for after securing a top-six finish that was barely merited for their form in 2016.

Although there has been a change in approach at some of the bigger stadia this season, McIntyre has generally stuck with the same system at home and in matches he expects a good chance to get a win from. With a less balanced squad than this time last year, it has barely worked. The intensity of before has dropped, the slower defence is reluctant to creep higher up the pitch for fear of leaving space for counter attacks behind, and the midfield hasn’t been creating as many chances as before.

There is nothing wrong in the 4-4-2 in itself but the team needs to be able to adapt to games where it is obvious that midfield control will be lost. There hasn’t been a lot of adaptability since McIntyre took charge – if the team doesn’t score first then a win is very unlikely.

2) They cannot counter

This season McIntyre has reverted to the 4-1-4-1 away to Celtic, Heart of Midlothian and Aberdeen, but have continued with the 4-4-2 at home. Numbers don’t mean anything on their own of course, but the use of the 4-1-4-1 has been with a defensive strategy in mind, to prioritise not conceding before anything else, as a point away to those clubs is a good result in any circumstance. In one sense that strategy has been a success: three clean sheets in four matches (including at Rangers) are to be commended on their own merit. However, County barely created a clear-cut opportunity across the four matches, with precious little attacking threat in open play.

The recent goal-scoring problem against the better sides is indicative of a longer term issue. There is a lack of physicality in attacking positions in the team, either by brute strength or sheer pace. None of Liam Boyce, Alex Schalk or Craig Curran are suited to playing as a lone striker as none have the attributes to occupy two centre-backs. Schalk has hinted at that but has not had much opportunity to do so. The strike force has been shaped around developing a strike partnership.

Perhaps of more importance is a lack of speed on the wings. Michael Gardyne is quick across ten yards and has come close to scoring a few times this season, but neither he nor the other wide midfielders have the ability to beat a full-back on the outside with pace alone. That has been an issue felt away from home when the whole team is lying very deep to prevent chances being created. But even in Dingwall, when the onus has been on County to play on the front foot, the wingers have often been picking the ball up at the halfway line due to the defence sitting deep.

Gardyne’s quality has recently been complemented by new arrival Chris Burke. They have the potential to be a quality wing pairing, but both players are on the wrong side of 30 and won’t be causing their marking full-backs alarm when the opposition squeeze up the park.

3) They are susceptible to the counter

Paul Quinn and Andrew Davies are two rugged, no-nonsense defenders who thrive on dominating their own penalty area. Their best performances are when clinging on to a slim lead or for a goalless draw, such as at Celtic Park, Ibrox and Tynecastle this season.

However, their lack of recovery pace can be a problem when the team has to chase a result, while their current deputy Jay McEveley isn’t much quicker. Paul McGowan’s goal to seal a 3-1 win for Dundee in Dingwall is a fine example. The visitors were able to break two-versus-one in open play. By the time that the ball was squared to McGowan to shoot with freedom of the box, it was central midfielders Ian McShane and Chris Routis who were closest to putting a challenge in. Three centre-backs were used that day but none were within 30 yards of their own goal by the time McGowan scored.

In 30 league matches in 2016, Ross County have conceded three or more goals nine times. If they concede the first goal, a heavy score could well be on the way.

4) A poor summer transfer window

Brian Graham, Richard Foster, Stewart Murdoch and Chris Robertson were allowed to find other clubs. It is understood that if Hibs are promoted then a small fee will be recouped for Graham. County do not directly benefit from the rest of the transfers other than reducing the size of the squad. Graham was often a better impact player than a regular starter for County last season, but he admitted when signing for the club that he was courted by McIntyre for a long time before signing a contract in the summer of 2015. Given he was arguably the only forward able to play as a sole striker and was the most prolific scorer for the club in 2016 to the point of his departure, it was an odd decision to let him leave so readily.

The management appeared to focus their signing strategy on recruiting defenders, doubling up on the full-back positions. Marcus Fraser and Erik Cikos are both equally capable at right-back, but if Cikos is given the opportunity to find his form from his first stint at the club 2013/14 then he could be a big asset to the club. He has been out of the team for the last seven matches.

On the other side, Kenny Van der Weg’s lack of technique looked to be offset by his brute strength, but forwards are currently beating him on the outside at a worrying rate. Letting Foster go to direct rivals St Johnstone, when he was one of the team’s most reliable players last season from a number of positions but particularly at left-back, is another curious decision.

Chris Routis might never be ‘the next Jackson Irvine’ but has potential to be a good Premiership midfielder. He has been dropped to the bench for the last clutch of matches without much explanation. Tim Chow has made no impact other than a reckless early red card at Pittodrie.

A quick or quality winger was badly needed over the summer but it didn’t happen. Perhaps a lot of time was invested in getting Gary Mackay-Steven on loan from Celtic, but it didn’t happen. Ryan Dow and Chris Burke have arrived outside of the window. Burke has supplanted Jonny Franks on the right wing and has already shown he will be a focal point to the attack, but questions remain on how Dow will fit into the team in the long term.

5) The Davies saga

First we were told that Andrew Davies was leaving the club, with his family not settling in the area. McIntyre stripped him of the captaincy and brought in Jay McEveley as his direct replacement.

Then he was staying. Supporters were delighted that a player who made the PFA Team of the Year was to stay, but it soon became obvious that there wasn’t much space in the team for all of McEveley, Davies and newly appointed captain Paul Quinn.

With hindsight, McIntyre moved too suddenly to replace Davies, with the entire situation resolving still within the transfer window. In mitigation, players of McEveley’s pedigree (even if he is error-prone) are not readily available to a club of Ross County’s size, so McIntyre would have felt the need to do that. The snap decision to make Quinn captain was, presumably, part of a longer term view.

The situation clearly bothered Davies, whose body language and performances at the beginning of the season left something to be desired. A quote in the local press to confirm that he was now happier with the circumstances was followed by a run of impressive, committed performances.

A strange moment then occurred in the second half of the recent 1-4 loss to Celtic. Paul Quinn had to leave the field with an injury, but Davies refused to wear the armband twice before it was eventually given to Martin Woods.

Davies gave a plausible but unconvincing explanation on social media. It is difficult not to wonder that there is another underlying reason.

6) Boyd being ostracised

Having only played one match for the club since a shaky performance against Linlithgow Rose in February 2015, Scott Boyd was never going to be a first choice defender this season. However, he has shown at his loan spell at Kilmarnock that he can at least be a useful squad player.

One suspects that the only reason Boyd was sent on loan rather than released was to allow him to complete his testimonial year at the club. On footballing reasons McIntyre probably has enough cover at centre-back to let him go, but his departure doesn’t seem to have been dealt with in the most palatable manner.

The first public sign of Boyd being frozen out of the squad was when McEveley was allocated his squad number in pre-season training. Boyd didn’t feature in traditional the first team squad photo, with the club citing sickness. Before the end of the transfer window Boyd was seen running a circuit on his own around Dingwall, indicating he was either not training with the first team or keen to keep his fitness in peak condition when given the opportunity to play.

Boyd is a cult hero among the supporters, being the only remaining player tied to the club to have played through from the Second Division to the top six of the Premiership (with Gardyne having spent a few spells away from the club during that time). McIntyre has to his credit tried to build a stable core of a squad for a long term plan, but there are few players in the squad as likeable as Boyd and it is a shame how events have turned out.

7) Not much progress for young players

When Derek Adams lost his job in September 2014 one criticism of his management was not bringing through youth players. Tony Dingwall was on the cusp of first team football but hit a glass ceiling, with Adams preferring to recruit more physically robust teenagers and early twenty-somethings from elsewhere to fill the first team.

McIntyre soon gave Dingwall an opportunity, but after early promise he seemed to show he was not ready to play first-team Premiership football. Nor has he been given a chance in his natural position as a second forward, instead always being asked to play as a winger or even wing-back. Dingwall’s first minutes playing in a central position came at the end of a recent draw at Patrick Thistle, when his inclusion alongside Chris Burke helped change the pattern of the match. He deserves a chance in his natural position before a proper judgement is made.

Greg Morrison is still only 18-years-old but has had to play up front when others have been injured (and after Graham was jettisoned). He looks like he will be given more of s chance in due course.

The most promising player of the Development Squad at the moment is left-back Chris McLaughlin. ‘Boomer’ lives up to his nickname with a strong core and a thumping left foot. The impression he gives is perhaps being an inch or so too short to be a Premiership-quality full-back, but he deserves a chance to prove himself beside experienced players like Davies and Quinn, particularly when the senior players ahead of him are repeatedly making errrors.

Money has been invested in recruiting and coaching players for a competitive under 20 squad. Stuart Kettlewell is doing a fine job in managing them to the top of the Development League. McIntyre has flooded the team with experience, but there needs to be a pathway for successful youth players to the first team if there is to be any sense of the club retaining the community-focused reputation it has earned.

8) Not replacing Jackson Irvine

Jackson Irvine could be frustrating to watch sometimes because he was liable to give possession of the ball away more cheaply than perhaps he should when considering his footballing ability. Yet he was clearly too good a player to stay at a club of Ross County’s level, which his performances for Burton Albion so far have proved.

One of the reasons why County were so successful from the beginning of 2015 was that Irvine could do more than his fair share of work in a two-man midfield partnership, which afforded the team to still play with two wingers and two centre forwards. Critics also suggested that it allowed Martin Woods to cover less ground more often. Football isn’t won or lost by distance covered but it was often telling that Woods was one of the last players to get back to defend a counter-attack, and the problem is even more apparent now when partnered next to Ian McShane who is a similarly-styled player to Woods.

The centre of midfield is no longer strong enough to regularly play a 4-4-2 in its current guise. McIntyre’s tactics need to evolve. He needs pace in his team and to work on getting the team to rediscover some of its bullish identity of 2015 because, apart from the league cup win 2016, it has been a disappointing year. There is no question that investment in the first-team and facilities mean that the club should be challenging for a top six position rather than fighting to avoid relegation. McIntyre will need better fortune in results to avoid growing pressure on his tenure.

Written by John A Maxwell