Tarmo Kink concedes he is lacking in match fitness but the Estonian international is ready to help the Caley Thistle cause.
The former Middlesbrough forward could make his debut for the Highlanders in tonight’s Scottish Cup quarter-final against Raith Rovers at Caledonian Stadium and Kink is eager to make up for lost time following a 10-month hiatus since leaving Hungarian club Kaposvari.
He said: “It’s one thing to train but I need to be playing regularly. Match fitness is much different from training fitness but I hope I can help the team right away.
“In the summer there were choices but to places I did not want to go. I could have gone to Bulgaria to CSKA Sofia, who are the league leaders and a big team. But with things out there, if you don’t do well then you don’t get paid.
“Then there was Rapid Bucharest, a big team in Romania, but they have problems. I had offers. I didn’t want to go back to Hungary because I had achieved everything there.
“The problem was there was no challenge that I liked. I could have gone to CSKA Sofia but I wasn’t happy with the life there – I wanted to go to a country like England, Germany or France.
“I just want to enjoy football again. I want to get that good feeling that comes from winning games. That means getting goals and assists and pushing the team towards Europe.
“It will be hard but nothing comes easy in life.”
Kink is confident he will have no problem readjusting to the demands of Scottish football after spending two years with Middlesbrough in the English Championship. His Boro experience was an unhappy one but Kink believes he will adapt quickly to Scottish football.
He said: “I will find it easy to come back here. I know what the lifestyle and training is like and what players want from the game. It’s much easier because of my Middlesbrough experience.
“With Tony Mowbray, I was sitting on the bench for six months. I played for about 10 minutes in January in my last season.
“If you don’t give me game time, how can I show myself? This is the problem. In the first season at Middlesbrough, Mowbray started to push me and I came up with goals and assists. It was OK.
“In my second season, I didn’t really play at all. But I’m not the first or last player for that to happen to. Sometimes these things happen.”
Kink’s international career has been on hold while he has been without a club but the 29-year-old would welcome the chance to play for his country again.
The forward knows to achieve that aim he has to establish himself with the Highlanders first.
He said: “I need to focus on my training but when I don’t play, I don’t get selected for the national team. It’s hard. They’ve changed the coach of the national team. It’s difficult for any player that’s not played for six months.
“I could use this as a stepping stone for that, why not? But my focus right now is on Inverness. If the international team comes again it’s a bonus.
“I like the style of football because Inverness are a team that is always passing the ball, not just playing it from back to front.
“This was one of the reasons why I wanted to come, because I heard they play great football.”