Inverness eager to keep Billy McKay, says Russell Latapy

Billy McKay (right) scored the first goal as Inverness beat Hamilton 2-0

Inverness assistant manager Russell Latapy reiterated the club's desire to keep in-demand Billy McKay after he scored in the opening-day 2-0 win over Hamilton.

Ryan Christie added a second after McKay's opener, putting the Highlanders top of the Scottish Premiership table.

"It's difficult to replace a striker who's going to score 20 goals a season," Latapy told BBC Scotland.

"We would be delighted if Billy stays this season."

And Latapy added: "You take football as it comes and whatever is best for Billy and best for the club will happen eventually.

"It was great of him to get up and running straight away, it puts us on the front foot."

Inverness, who signed former Hibernian midfielder Lewis Horner in time for the match, looked a class above the newly-promoted Hamilton, and could have had an even more comfortable score-line had Marley Watkins not hit the bar with 15 minutes left.

"We got our two goals in the first half and we were solid enough in the second half," said Latapy. "In the first 20 minutes of the second half they had to come out and put pressure on us and they did.

"We kept the ball fairly well and took the pressure off of the game and at the end we could have scored another. What we tried to do was come out and impose ourselves on the game.

"We knew the other team was a team coming up and there would be a lot of expectation and pressure and we just tried to keep as solid as we could, score as many as we could, and we got the result that we came here for.

"We would be delighted if we can achieve the same things as we did last season [finishing fifth], that is what we are working toward and we'll just have to see how far we can go."