Caley Thistle midfielder Nick Ross believes new signing Edward Ofere can play a pivotal part in helping Caley Thistle qualify for European football for the first time.
Ofere scored on his Inverness debut on Saturday, but could not prevent the Caley Jags losing 2-1 to the Premiership’s bottom side Motherwell at Fir Park.
The Nigeria international, who has played in Italy, Sweden and Denmark, signed for the club on Friday and Ross reckons the 28-year-old can replace Billy Mckay, who was sold to Wigan in January.
He said: “He did well in his first game in Scottish football. It will take time, but the goal will give him confidence.
“We hadn’t really seen much of him, he’d only trained once or twice so we weren’t sure what he’d be like, but he’s a good player, he held the ball up well and he’s got some leap on him.
“If we get the ball into the box he’ll score a lot of goals.
“He showed with his header for the goal that he’ll get in and around and score some goals and that’s what we need.
“He is the opposite to what we had with Billy as he was more about getting the ball into his feet and running into the channels and causing trouble.
“Eddie will hold it up and wants us to get balls into the box. He looks a good addition and will do well.”
Caley Thistle remain seven points ahead of fourth-place Dundee United, who were beaten 2-0 by Partick Thistle on Saturday.
A top three finish would bring European football to Inverness for the first time but Ross says his team are not looking for their passports just yet.
He said: “There’s not much talk of that at the moment, we’ve got a big game next weekend in the Scottish Cup against Raith Rovers so that’ll be our focus and we’ll take it from there.
“We were disappointed to lose the game against Motherwell. We’ve not been playing well and we didn’t pass the ball around.
“The pitch didn’t help, but we don’t want to look for excuses, we’re disappointed to get beaten, especially as when we got back to 1-1 I thought we’d push on. We hit the post and the bar and we were a bit unlucky as their winning goal was deflected.
“But Dundee United and Hamilton got beat, so it’s not too bad.”