Caley Thistle defender Louis Laing is convinced the Highlanders have more quality than former club Motherwell in the race for Premiership survival.
Inverness are bottom of the table but are only two points behind Well and their Lanarkshire rivals Hamilton Accies with 11 games remaining.
Laing joined Caley Jags on a free transfer last month after leaving the Steelmen in January, playing his third game for the Highlanders in Wednesday’s 4-0 defeat by runaway leaders Celtic.
The Englishman has watched on from afar as his former club has endured some tough recent results, including a 7-2 defeat by Aberdeen at Pittodrie and a 5-1 home loss to Dundee which resulted in the sacking of manager Mark McGhee.
Laing reckons Richie Foran’s men have what it takes to beat the drop ahead of the Fir Park side and he said: “I don’t want to speak too much about Motherwell but some of their past results have been diabolical. They’re conceding a lot of goals, so something has got to change for them.
“It would be nice for me to finish above them on a personal note. They’ve got some good players, such as Scott McDonald and Louis Moult, but we’ve got some great players here as well.
“As a squad, and a team of players I would probably say Inverness top it at the minute. We’ve got a great group of lads and we all believe we can get out of the position we’re in and we need to start against Partick.
“I’m surprised at our position since coming in. I didn’t really know what to expect but from the three games I’ve played I can see we’ve got some good players in the squad. We all believe we’re going to get out of the situation, it’s just unfortunate we’re bottom of the league now.
“We’re all positive we can get out of it.”
Laing says his side must not dwell on Wednesday’s loss against a Celtic side 27 points clear at the top of the Premiership and the 23-year-old added: “Playing against Celtic is a different kettle of fish. It’s always tough against them but we know we need to show more belief against teams like that.
“We need to stay positive, we need to forget about the Celtic game. They’re a good team and it’s no wonder they’re top of the league with so many points. We’ve just got to move on to the Partick game.”