Billy Dodds believes in Celtic giant killing as he tells Inverness troops 'don't turn up' if they have champions fear

Inverness boss Billy Dodds has told his Scottish Cup final stars: “If you don’t believe, don’t turn up.”

Dodds is looking to cause one of the biggest upsets of recent times by toppling Ange Postecoglou’s Celtic Treble-chasers at Hampden tonight. The Caley Thistle manager is looking to follow in the footsteps of John Hughes, who led the club to glory back in 2015. Dodds claimed: “You cling onto anything when you’re the underdog and a Championship team facing the champions in a Scottish Cup Final. You’ve got to – it is human nature to look at things like that. That’s what we’ve been working on.

“We know it is going to be difficult and we know the machine that we’re facing. But is it do-able? Percentage-wise, it is not very high, but absolutely. That’s not being blase, it’s being factual. I go no further than this season, with Darvel beating Aberdeen. If you don’t believe, don’t turn up.”

Dodds has also vowed to send his Championship out to have a go at glory. “I don’t want to go to Hampden and sit there in a shape, hoping for a fluke over 90 minutes or longer where we’ve sat back and defended on our own line,” he claimed.

“Celtic might force us back for long periods, yes, but I want to try and be a threat as well. We know we’ll face a lot of pressure, we’ll be backs to the wall at times, with a need for the boys to be focused and concentrated at all times.

“But we also want to be a threat – and we are. We usually score goals and there’s only been maybe three or four occasions this season we’ve had a zero to our name. We don’t want to sit back and hope.We want Celtic to know we’re a threat as well.”

It helps that the Caley Thistle will have guys like Danny Devine and Aaron Doran who won the cup with the Highlanders eight