Ross County defender Jay McEveley says the determination of manager Jim McIntyre to build on last season’s success was key to him joining the Staggies.
McEveley, who has three Scotland caps, joined County on a two-year deal this summer after leaving English League 1 side Sheffield United.
The Liverpool-born defender qualified to play for Scotland through his grandfather and has kept tabs on the Scottish Premiership since making his national team debut in a 1-0 friendly win against South Africa at Pittodrie in 2007.
County enjoyed their most successful season last term, winning the League Cup and finishing in the Premiership top six for just the second time. McEveley is keen to play his part in creating more memories for Staggies supporters.
He said: “The club has grown over the last four or five years, especially with the way County have worked themselves up into the top league. They’ve had a couple of successful years. Winning the cup last year and finishing in the league top six was a great achievement.
“The manager doesn’t want to rest on his laurels, he wants to kick on from here and I wanted to be involved with it.
“I’ve always watched the league from afar and obviously being involved with Scotland when I was younger, I had heard a lot of good things about the league.
“I’ve been in England all my life and played across all the leagues and I just wanted a fresh challenge, really.
“The lads are confident because of what they did last season and we’ve got a few new additions to the team. From what I’ve seen on the training pitch and in games, there’s no reason why we can’t achieve what we did last year and maybe push one further.
“The lads have gone out and played against all these teams last year and done very well against them. With the quality added to the squad I think we can kick on.”
McEveley made his debut in Saturday’s 1-0 win against Montrose in the new group stage of the Betfred Cup.
The 31-year-old admits he was taken by surprise by the early return to action – along with the artificial Links Park surface – but he is keen to use the competition to continue building up match fitness for the start of the Premiership campaign against Dundee on August 6.
He added: “It’s weird because we’re going into games that are ideally pre-season warm-up games, but it’s competitive.
“It was the first time I had played a game on an artificial surface and it took me a good 20 minutes to get used to the pitch. Usually, when we play on that type of pitch it’s when we play in training grounds.”