Caley Thistle manager Richie Foran believes Larnell Cole is showing why Inverness were desperate to bring the midfielder back to the club for the rest of the season.
The on-loan Fulham midfielder made just his seventh start for Caley Jags in Saturday’s 2-1 Scottish Cup win at Elgin City and was outstanding for the Highlanders at Borough Briggs.
Foran feared Fulham were not going to extend Cole’s loan into the second half of the campaign and is thrilled the 23-year-old will be at Caledonian Stadium.
Foran said: “Larnell stole the show against Elgin with a man-of-the-match performance. He has an abundance of quality. We put him on the right in the second half and he did the same as he did in the first half by terrorising the full back.
“He has wonderful vision, a great touch and showed he has an eye for goal.
“He is a great signing for us and I’m so pleased we have managed to get him here for the rest of the season.
“I don’t know if I’ve actually heard him speak yet and that’s what I like from my players. He has played six or seven games for us now and he has been the best player on the park in four or those games.
“That’s what we want from him and we hope to see even more from him between now and the end of the season.”
Caley Thistle’s reward for beating Elgin is a fifth-round trip to Celtic but for now the main focus is on hauling the club off the bottom of the Scottish Premiership.
Saturday’s cup win was the club’s first in 11 matches and Foran has challenged his players to make it back-to-back wins for the first time since the Betfred Cup group matches in July by beating Partick Thistle at Caledonian Stadium on Saturday.
He said: “The main thing for us was getting through but we have to give Elgin credit as they did really well.
“They worked us hard but they weren’t able to really hurt us in the final third and that’s due to the hard work of our defence.
“I can see Jim Weir has got a good group of players at Elgin and I wish them well for the rest of the season but it was an important victory for us.
“Another win for us would do wonders as it would be back-to-back victories and might just be enough to get our season going again.”