Andy Shinnie has warned his Livingston colleagues they will have to be on their guard to deal with the twin threat posed by two of his lethal former team-mates on Saturday.
The Lions head to Dens Park to face a Dundee side who could field both Leigh Griffiths and Jason Cummings in attack. Griffiths has joined on loan from Celtic and is in line to make his debut, while Cummings has scored 13 goals since arriving on Tayside in January.
Livingston midfielder Shinnie played with Griffiths at Dundee more than a decade ago, while he is also close to Cummings after sharing a dressing-room with him at Hibernian and Luton. The two strikers have scored more than 300 career goals between them and Shinnie knows they pose a big danger to Livingston’s hopes of picking up their first points of the campaign.
He said: “Leigh and Jason is a pretty threatening partnership. There’s a lot of goals between them. They’re two dangerous forwards that will be a threat in the league but it’s up to our defenders to keep them quiet.
“I played with Leigh when I was a young lad on loan at Dundee and I got on really well with Jason at both Hibs and Luton. He’s a bit of a character, as everyone knows but he’s a lovely boy. He’s a big threat and a good player. He’s come back to Scotland and found a home at Dundee so he’ll be a danger to us this weekend.”
Livingston have lost all four of their cinch Premiership games so far, at home to Aberdeen and Motherwell and away to Rangers and Hibs, but Shinnie is confident their fortunes will improve.
He said: “We need to try and get our first points on the board and kick on. I don’t think we’re far away from being competitive. The tough start has been a mix of different things. We’ve been in most of our games. We were winning at half-time against both Aberdeen and Motherwell and ended up losing, which was poor, but we are competing.
“It’s a new set of players, including myself, and we’re still getting used to each other. We’ve also had difficult games – at Ibrox and Easter Road, and Aberdeen at home. We’re four games in and it’s been a tough start but once we get our first points I’m sure we’ll kick on.”
Shinnie has had a disrupted start to his Livingston career since joining from Charlton in the summer but feels he is now getting up to speed.
The former Inverness and Hibs player said: “I’d been down south a while and I wanted to come back to Scotland. The games are great. We’ve playing against good teams and good players, and I’m enjoying it.
“I feel like I’m getting fitter all the time. I missed a bit of pre-season because I probably did too much, too soon but I’m getting fitter every week and feeling good. I’m really enjoying it.”