Manager Jim McIntyre believes Ross County will head into the second half of the season with a squad stronger than the one that won the League Cup last March.
The Staggies have brought in four players in the January transfer window and produced a formidable show in Saturday’s 6-2 hammering of Championship contenders Dundee United.
Jim O’Brien, the former Celtic, Motherwell, Barnsley and Coventry City midfielder, made a scoring debut from the bench, also setting up another goal in the rout, having joined on loan from Shrewsbury.
Also impressive in a short substitute’s appearance was fellow loanee Milan Lalkovic, a former Chelsea midfielder who has joined from Portsmouth until the end of the season.
Still to take a first bow for County are right back Jason Naismith, signed from St Mirren, and midfielder Oscar Gobern, previously with Southampton, Huddersfield and QPR.
Early in the campaign, McIntyre lost Australia international Jackson Irvine, but managed to fend off interest in several other leading performers.
Andrew Davies, the previously unsettled central defender, had been keen to move back closer to his home base near Middlesbrough but on Monday night signed a new two-year contract extension through to summer 2019.
McIntyre remains realistic about the scale of challenge ahead in the struggle for a top six place, but said: “This is the strongest we’ve been here at County, without a shadow of doubt. I’m looking forward to the second half of the season.
“We know we’ve still got it all to do. We’re coming into a period of games against the teams around about us where we need to make sure we’re picking up points.
“But we know how difficult that is as the teams are all very similar.
“It is up to us to try to keep the consistency going that we’ve shown in the last eight or nine games. We’ve had a couple of blips but we’ve bounced back fairly well.
“We’re going to have that and will do in the second half of the season as well, but that’s the challenge we face, trying to be more consistent.”
McIntyre’s activity in the transfer window is not necessarily at an end and he could also offload personnel from the fringes of what is now a sizeable squad.