Owen Paterson hopes to establish himself in the Breedon Highland League with Strathspey Thistle.
Having been on the fringes at Forres Mechanics, the midfielder joined Strathspey last week.
The 23-year-old made his debut for the Grantown-on-Spey side in Saturday’s 9-0 defeat to Fraserburgh and is set to face Lossiemouth at Grant Park tonight.
Paterson said: “I was speaking to Steven MacDonald (Forres manager) at training one night and I said I was wanting game time. And Steven said the possibility of going to Strathspey had come up.
“I know Charlie Brown (Strathspey manager) well from his time with the Mechanics, he was good to me and it’s just gone from there really.
“I’m at the point now where I want to try to establish myself in the Highland League.
“I might have got the opportunity to do that at Forres, but I didn’t know how far down the line that would be.
“So I felt the time was right to go somewhere and try to establish myself.”
Lossie on the up
Last season Lossiemouth and Strathspey finished 15th and 16th, respectively, although the Coasters were 10 points better off.
Midfielder Liam Archibald is hoping Joe Russell’s side can improve again this term.
But the 30-year-old admits the first priority has to be to stay clear of the bottom and the relegation play-off spot.
After wins against Forres Mechanics in the North of Scotland Cup and Wick Academy in the league, Archibald is upbeat about their chances of making it three in a row.
He added: “If we want to be clear of the bottom of the table and improve again, we’ve got to do the business again.
“This is already a big game, because it could put a gap between ourselves and the bottom of the league.
“People will expect ourselves and Strathspey to be down there, but we want to be fighting to finish in the middle of the table.
“We only took one point out of six against Strathspey last season, so if we could win this game that would be an improvement.”