Caley Thistle manager John Hughes believes his new forwards Miles Storey and Tobi Sho-Silva can fire the club back up the Scottish Premiership table.
The Highlanders put a sluggish start to the new campaign behind them with a strong showing in their 2-0 win against Hearts at Caledonian Stadium on Friday.
The win was the first of the new campaign for the Scottish Cup winners and Hughes believes the transfer deadline day reinforcements of loan signings Storey, who scored on his debut on Friday, and Sho-Silva can galvanise the club.
He said: “All the supporters can see how good a player Storey is going to be for us – he looks sharp, he’s quick and he’s a lovely lad. Big Silva who came on, showed he is going to be a handful, too.
“We have been looking for these guys to stretch the game for us, because we are a good team but that is what we’ve been missing.
“If we can keep everyone free of injury hopefully this can be the start of a move up the table for us. It was important we got the win and now we have just got to keep going.
“I’ve been saying for a while we weren’t too far away and that lady luck had deserted us. Hopefully, we can kick on from here.”
It has been a summer of readjustment at Inverness following the departure of several first-team regulars of the last campaign.
Hughes is not surprised to see his side take time to adjust but he remains confident his club can enjoy another strong campaign.
He said: “We’re not the team we were last season and it’s hard to replace players we lost like Graeme Shinnie, Billy Mckay, Marley Watkins and Nick Ross.
“We have to go about our game a different way but the spirit, togetherness and the hunger is still in this squad. I’ve seen it on the training pitch and I saw it against Hearts.
“I’ve got an honest group of players here and they know the only way to get your rewards in this game is by working hard and that showed against Hearts.”