Ross County attacker Liam Boyce wants to fire the Staggies to fourth place in the Scottish Premiership and secure his place in Northern Ireland’s squad for this summer’s European championship finals in France.
Boyce was forced to return from international duty early last month after suffering a recurrence of a broken hand in training, although the setback was not as bad as first feared, with Boyce returning for County’s next game against Dundee.
The 25-year-old is County’s leading scorer with 18 goals this season but has only scored once in 13 matches since the turn of the year.
Boyce is targeting a return to form in the post-split games and he said: “I was at training with Northern Ireland and I put my hand out and felt it crack again.
“I thought instantly that I’d be out for another six weeks but I saw a specialist in Manchester and, although a bone had cracked, nothing was out of place and I managed to get straight back into training.
“It came at a bad time but I want to get back amongst the goals with five important games now. I want to try and shoot us into the top four and that will send out a good message.
“Against the top six we are obviously playing against the form teams but I think goals in any shape or form to try and keep the run going is important.”
Having met their early season target of a top-six finish, County now have the opportunity to push for fourth spot. That would be a club record for the Staggies, who finished fifth in their first season in the top-flight in 2012-13.
The Staggies are sixth, a point behind fourth-placed Motherwell, and despite the possibility of an extra Europa League place through the league having been ended by Celtic’s Scottish Cup defeat by Rangers on Sunday, Boyce says there is still plenty to play for.
Boyce added: “We know we still have a good chance to finish fourth. That would be a great achievement, the best finish in the club’s history and we are going out to try and achieve that.
“It would have been great to still have something extra to play for, but we still want to prove we are better than the teams around us. We want to prove that we can consistently compete for the top six.
“We can try to show we are the fourth best team in the league and we can try to kick on again next year.”