Ross County manager Derek Adams admits Staggies did not do enough to win at St Mirren – but is hopeful that young defender Dylan Smith's injury is not too bad
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Derek Adams admitted that Ross County did not play nearly as well as they have in recent weeks in their 2-0 defeat at St Mirren.
The Staggies manager suffered the first defeat of his third spell in charge in Paisley, with an own goal from Ryan Leak and a mistake from Ross Laidlaw letting Jonah Ayunga find the net in the second half.
St Mirren broke the deadlock after a short period where County were playing with 10 men, as Dylan Smith went over his ankle and needed treatment, with Adams forced to wait before making the eventually necessary change.
That, though, did not play into his side going behind in the manager's eyes.
"It didn't help us from the point of view that we didn't want to have to make the change, but I thought we had started okay," Adams reasoned.
"It happened, and we couldn't do anything about it. We needed to get a player on, and they were able to get that advantage.
"We had put St Mirren under a wee bit of pressure. We knew it would be difficult because they were under pressure to get a win today, and they managed to get their second win in 11 games.
"We were trying to stop them passing the ball, and we did that. We nearly nicked it a couple of times off their centre halves, but we just weren't good enough in the final third today.
"I was a wee bit disappointed in the way that we didn't take the game by the scruff of the neck.
"At 2-0 down we were still trying to pass it – forgetting that the objective of the game is to score goals, so that was a bit disappointing.
"We didn't play as well as we can, or as we have done in recent weeks, and we didn't deserve to win the game."
Smith had looked in a decent amount of pain as he tried to gauge how bad his injury was before finally admitting defeat in his bid to carry on.
Adams does not expect it to be a long-term issue, though, and said he thought the teenager had done well in his first start under the boss.
"Dylan went over his ankle, which caused us a problem because I changed the shape to four at the back," Adams added.
"Quite quickly after that I changed it back, because it looked like they were going to cause us trouble.
"I don't think it's that bad for him, he's just gone over it.
"He's 17 years old, and he has been given an opportunity. He's played a lot of games at this level for a young boy, but it doesn't matter whether you're 17 or 37, you've got to perform.
"He's been given that opportunity today, and I thought he did well in the game."
