Ross County would love to keep Regan Charles-Cook – Don Cowie

Posted Sunday, February 27, 2022 by PA

Don Cowie hopes the cinch Premiership’s leading scorer Regan Charles-Cook will still be at Ross County next season

The Grenada international scored twice in the Staggies’ 3-1 victory over St Johnstone to bring his total for the season to 13 goals.

Charles-Cook moved two goals ahead of Rangers striker Alfredo Morelos as Ross County moved seven points clear of the relegation zone.

The 25-year-old’s contract is due to expire at the end of the season, with his future at the club in doubt.

Assistant boss Cowie hopes he will stay but admits the decision is up to the player.

“He’s on fire, he’s top goalscorer in the whole league, which is not often that’s the case,” Cowie said. “It will come down to Regan in terms of where he wants his career to go.

“We would love him to stay. I love working with him every day, he’s a breath of fresh air.

“He comes in every day and he’s smiling and happy. Even last year when he wasn’t playing he was still the same person.

“Anything he gets, he deserves. We just hope he keeps doing what he’s doing until the end of the season.”

After failing to make an impact last season, Charles-Cook has been a revelation this term, but Cowie says there is more to his game than scoring goals.

“It was a challenging season for Regan last year,” Cowie added. “He didn’t manage to get a consistent run of games, which is difficult for anyone.

“Especially as a wide player, you want to get in your stride.

“There’s a real belief and confidence from us as a staff and a club that we have in Regan. He has just built on what he did at the start of the season.

“The goals are obviously great, but it’s what he adds to us as a team. He works ever so hard for a wide player, as they can be renowned for sometimes maybe switching off defensively.

“It’s not something he does and we are delighted with the goals he is producing.”

Meanwhile, Callum Davidson says he would rather see St Johnstone get relegated “being positive and getting beat” than witness another second-half performance like he saw at Dingwall.

“It disappoints me, given what was at stake,” Davidson said. “I don’t know whether it’s fragile confidence. I don’t really know the answer to that.

“The second half was a shadow of ourselves and how we’ve been.

“We’ve managed to get a lot of points and this was such a huge game. It definitely wasn’t pressure, I just think sometimes when we lose a goal we’re quite fragile.”

He added: “For me, they didn’t seem to be hungry enough. That’s maybe a bad accusation to make, because they’ve been good.

“But I think you saw out there we didn’t do enough to stop their goals and, on the other side, to go and create and be positive. There’s five games to the split and we need to start winning games and start being positive.

“I’d rather go down being positive and getting beat, rather than do what we did for the last 30 minutes of the second half.”