STEVEN MILNE hasn’t looked forward to a season as much since he joined St Johnstone, and yesterday he vowed to make up for his four years in the first division wilderness, writes Alan Richardson.

As the striker got up close to the premier league trophy during a visit to McDiarmid Park, as the new season’s fixtures were released, he admitted the prospect of a return to the top flight is one he relishes.

Milne—whose close season has been taken up with the birth 17 days ago of second daughter Lucia—signed off his last spell at the top by scoring for Dundee in a 2-1 win over Aberdeen and hopes to make a similar impact when Motherwell visit the first division champions’ flag day on August 15.

He said, “Hopefully I can start this season the way I left Dundee—I scored eight goals in 15 games and I’d like to carry that on, but just to stay in the league will be the main thing.

“We’ve been waiting for a while and it’s hit home today seeing the fixtures.

“I looked for Dundee United because it’s a derby. The Old Firm as well because you want to play in the big games.

“But Motherwell’s the one to focus on because it’s first and it’s a home game and we want to pick something up from that.

“I’ve been thinking about it quite a bit and probably not looked forward to a season as much as this for a long time.

“It’s been a while in the first division so being back in the premier league and playing these sort of teams week in, week out is something to look forward to.

“I was young when I came through at Dundee and you assume you’re going to be in that league all the time.

“When I came here I thought we’d get into the premier league long before now and the fact we’ve taken so long means we will appreciate it all the more.”

Milne broke through during the Ivano Bonetti era at Dens Park and was one of the few homegrown talents to line up alongside the likes of Claudio Caniggia, Georgi Nemsadze and Fabrizio Ravanelli.

He knows the cash-strapped top league is a different prospect to the one he left behind for an ill-fated spell at Plymouth, before Owen Coyle brought him to Perth.

“There’s not as many big names any more but the excitement doesn’t wane because of that. There is still a lot of talent and teams that play attractive football and obviously the stadiums are better than the first division ones.

“We’ve added to the squad we had last year and we’ve seen in the past when we’ve played against Premier League teams in one-off games we’ve done well, and we just have to put that together as a run in the league.

“We’ve seen Hamilton and St Mirren doing it so I feel we can compete.”

And Milne shrugged off speculation linking boss Derek McInnes to a switch to West Brom after Tony Mowbray’s return to Celtic this week.

Milne said, “He’s done really well and things do come along when you do well. But we’re hoping he stays—it’s not a bad job to have as a young manager.”